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Richard Tuttle

BY MARCIA TUCKER

WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

\ F\V YORK

SEPTEMBER 12-NOVEMBER 16, 1975

OTIS ART INSTITUTE GALLERY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY

LOS ANGELES

JANUARY 16-FEBRUARY 29, 1976

Whitney Museum of American Art
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitnev. Foundei

Trustees

Arthur G. Altschul, Treasurer
Thomas N. Armstrong III. Director
Norborne Berkeley, Jr.
Lawrence H. Bloedel
Daniel R. Childs
Joel S. Ehrenkranz
B. H. Friedman
W. Barklie Henry
Susan Morse Hilles
Michael H. Irving
Flora Miller Irving, Vice President
Howard Lipman, President
William A. Marsteller
Flora Whitney Miller, Honorary Chairman
Steven Muller
Sandra Payson
Jules D. Prown
Mrs. Laurance S. Rockefeller
Benno C. Schmidt
Charles Simon
David M. Solinger, Chairman
Laurence A. Tisch

Palmer B. Wald, Administraloi and Secretary

John I. H. Baur, Honorary Trustet
Lloyd Goodrich, Honorary Trustei
Alan H. Temple, Honorary Trustee

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Otis Art Institute Gallery of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles

Library t.i ( longress Catalogue ( lard Numbei 76- 1 1 16
ISBN 0-87427-020-0

Designed In Joseph Bourke Del Valle

I'n n led iii i lie United States ol America by Eastern Press, New Haven

Photographs by Rudolph Burckhardt, Geoffrey Clements,

I lal ( ;ii< ksiu.ui. I ).m I .enoie. Warren Silverman, Marcia I ucker

Preface and Acknowledgments

This catalogue and my accompanying essay on Richard Tuttle's work were begun after the exhibition of
his work at the Whitney Museum closed on November 16, 1975. There were three installation changes
within the two-month period of the exhibition, and the catalogue not only reflects those changes but also
focuses on the specific works shown in each. For this reason, the catalogue and the essay deal almost
exclusively with the works made for the show rather than with Tuttle's total oeuvre. Although both
Tuttle and I believed that the work we selected for each installation ultimately covered a wide range of
his concerns, we did not attempt to be comprehensive but rather chose pieces according to the dictates of
the space, each work's relationship to other pieces in the exhibition, and our own preferences.

Thus, the catalogue is a selective and a personal one. The essay, similarly, does not attempt to
deal with Tuttle's own history or those aspects of his work which relate to the concerns of other
contemporary artists. I have chosen not to discuss the work, for example, in the context of a
Post-Minimal aesthetic, but rather to concentrate on those specific aspects of it that intrigue me. It is my
hope that, if the essay clarifies these aspects, the analogies to other artists' work done in the ten years of
Tuttle's work that the exhibition covers will become clear.

I wish to thank the many people who helped with the exhibition and whose enthusiasm and
support were essential to it. Jock Truman, of the Parsons-Truman Gallery, and the gallery staff were
inordinately helpful in providing information of every kind. Dorothy and Herbert Vogel allowed us to
peruse their extraordinary collection of Tuttle's drawings in their home at our leisure and to borrow-
extensively from it. Their generosity, and the generosity of the other lenders who willingly sent work to
the exhibition, is greatly appreciated. Robert Pincus-VVitten, who has had a long-time interest in Tuttle's
work, was kind enough to share his ideas with me and to offer invaluable moral support.

In the Museum, I would like to thank Elizabeth Easton for her research and organizational
help; Roni Feinstein, who transcribed my notes and worked through the three all-night installations
with us; and especially Katherine Sokolnikoff, whose help was indispensable to every aspect of the
exhibition and catalogue. Tim Yohn once again provided a thoughtful and critical editing of the essay. I
would like to thank Tom Armstrong, the Whitney Museum's Director, for his personal and professional
support when hostility toward the unconventional manner in which the exhibition was organized
reached a fever pitch.

Most of all, thanks to Richard Tuttle; the close contact with him and with his work have
reinforced my belief in his integrity and vision and in the power of works of art to change one's life.

M.T.

"Someone once asked me why I do these pieces.
It's so I don't have to make them again."

Richard Tuttle

The work of Richard Tuttle often shocks viewers with its offhandedness, its modest informality and its
rough, impermanent look. Tuttle's pieces are insistent; their often small size, visual frailty and blatant
disregard for the kind of technical refinement found in "major" art stubbornly, even perversely,
command attention. These pieces are so removed from the attitudes and modes of working found in the
art of most of Tuttle's peers that their individuality alone constitutes, for many viewers, an offense in
itself.

Tuttle's own attitudes are refreshingly anomalous in an era when art means business. For him,
an essential level of his work is that of "investigation." He is often surprised by the changes that take
place in a piece upon completion or when an old work is installed in a new location. He is reluctant to
make comparative judgments about the quality of his own work, because he finds that each piece is
"self-sufficient." having its own necessity for being. One key to the peculiar look of the work is that Tuttle
has always tried "to make something that looks like itself," that is, to avoid anthropomorphic or
naturalistic references. He also avoids polemic in his work, refusing to use the work to deal with art issues
per se. That one is led to discuss the work as though it had a mind of its own is a result of Tuttle's desire to
make work that looks "ecstatic, as though the artist had never been there." Tuttle comments that "if the
artist does a piece of real work and we see it, it's as though we ourselves are doing it."1 This exchange
between viewer and work has been noted by others: "If we really attain the art object perceptually." says
Norberg-Schulz, "we may get a strange experience of participating."2 This directness accounts in part for
the "my kid could have done it" response to Tuttle's work, a response so marked even from the
aesthetically sophisticated viewer as to make the childlike aspect of Tuttle's work one of substantial
importance and worth considering. This quality is compounded by the casual, wobbly, tentative look of
the lines and forms he uses, and the simplicity and directness of their execution. The instantaneous look
of the work, as if each piece had appeared all at once, makes it anomalous to a public which equates the
value of the materials used, the amount of time spent in the execution of the piece, and the manual skill
of the artist with the value of the art itself.

In this sense, Tuttle's work is anti-materialistic, transcendental in both intent and affect.
According to him, "the work rests at the unconscious level. Bringing it to the conscious level is like
resisting its own will." The sense of quietude that the exhibition elicited in many observers is at the core
of the work. It is an interior, almost meditative state in which the boundaries between work and viewer,
inside and outside, can be obliterated.

Simplk itv is perhaps the hardest thing of all to accept in the work; the pieces are about seeing,
rather than knowing or analyzing, because they sensitize our ability to perceive and, further, to visualize.
Tuttle says that we tend to admire great minds, people who can sustain complexities and contradictions.
"< )n the other hand, nature admires the simpleminded. Nature's admiration is exactly the opposite of
human admiration. Sonic of the works of art that are necessary to me are those that praise my simplicity,
like the Isenheim Altarpiece. Once having seen it. I couldn't live without it. Simplicity and complexity
are virtually the same thing."

There is a tendency toward dematerialization in Tuttle's work from 1964 to the present that
lends itself to analysis; the logic of this tendency is broken only when the work of several periods is seen in
a non-linear, conjunctive way, as in the Whitney exhibition.

I uttle began, in 1963-64, by making a series of three-inch paper cubes, variously incised and
folded, that can be held in the hand. Their volumetric quality is emphasized by a lightweight delicacy
and by the fact thai the interior forms are often illusionistically intricate, focusing on how the area
contained by the surface (i.e., the volume) can be manipulated. These pieces were followed in 1964-66
by reliefs, made by cutting two identical pieces of plywood and joining them by a strip of wood along the

sides. These were then sanded and painted in the monochrome muted colors that hover on the periphery
of symbolic association: Water (cerulean blue). Fire (salmon red), Bridgi (chromatic orange), /////
(medium gray), Flower (light pink) and Fountain (very pale gray). These works have been referred to as
"ideograms"3 or "pictographs"4 because they seem to be quasi-symbolic, shorthand references to real
images or experiences. These works, and The Twenty-Six Series or "tin alphabet" of 1967, were made to be
exhibited on the wall or floor.

Immediately after The Twenty-Six Series, Tuttle made a group often cloth octagonals, dved in
mute, offbeat pastels. These 1967 octagonals, like the preceding pieces, could be installed either on the
wall or floor, the question of whether they were paintings or sculpture becoming irrelevant. Dved and
wrinkled, they are stored crumpled in a canvas bag and installed with small nails, therefore negating
their potential objecthood. Tuttle called the cloth octagonals "drawings for three dimensional structures
in space.'"' They were followed by twelve white paper octagonals (1970), each cut from a pattern and
glued directly onto the wall. These paper works are perceptually so elusive that it is often difficult to see
the pieces or, when one does, to determine whether the paper constitutes a light form on the darker
ground of the wall or vice versa. The light changes the pieces as much as the pieces alter the light around
(or on) them, but they are as much like shadows, defined by their delicate edges, as they are like volumes
of light.

Just after the 1 1th Paper Octagonal, Tuttle executed nine wall paintings derived from it. These
were highly chromatic, geometric paintings, based on unit measurements, so that the scale of the
paintings could be changeable as long as the relationships within each painting remained measurably
constant. The red 9th Painting for the Wall (1970) in the first installation, for instance, was visually as
elusive as the paper octagonals. Because it was executed on the two right-angled edges of a partition
wall, it became optically fused with the shadow along one side, so that it was mostly only visible up close.

Up to this point, Tuttle's work was clearly tending toward dematerialization, becoming more
ephemeral as it became more a part of the wall or ground plane on which it was situated. This linear
development of the work, however, changed from 1970 on, since the wire pieces done off and on between
1 97 1 and 1 974 once again moved away from the wall, establishing a more specific, less isolated dialogue
between those elements of volume, line, surface and shadow that Tuttle had been involved with
previously. The wire pieces are of three kinds. Some, like the 3rd Wire Octagonal ( 1971 ) or 6th Wire Bridge
(1971), are drawings done with thin wire. They are executed by placing nails in the wall according to a
brown paper pattern on which their location is marked, then loosely stretching the wire from nail to nail.
Others are done by drawing the wire between two graphite lines and cutting it at the center {35th Wire
Piece [ 1972], first installation). Still others are done by drawing a line from one point to another (usually
as large as the arms can span), hammering small nails in at the beginning and end of the lines, then
tracing the wire along the graphite lines, bending it to conform to the linear shape. The wire is attached
at both ends and then released, causing it to spring out from the wall. The freed wire casts a shadow,
which forms the third element in the triad of mark, substance and shadow.

Tuttle's subsequent series of works alternate between two and three dimensions in various ways.
The 1973 string "drawings" on the floor, entitled Ten Kinds of Memory and Memory Itself, are barely
three-dimensional, since string is such a linear material. Nonetheless, the drawings are executed
according to a specific movement pattern, which can be repeated in order to reexecute the piece. The
movements involve sitting, standing, stretching, kneeling, etc., as the string; is drawn, thrown or placed as
a result of each movement. Although Ten Kinds of Memory and Memory Itself is the most linear and
two-dimensional of Tuttle's sculptural pieces, it was created in a state of transition between two and
three dimensions because its execution involves a choreographed enactment in time and space,

Similarly, the homasote Placks Tuttle did in 19715, flat, white, mute pieces of wallboard hung
below eye level, were non-volumetric. They were, literally, a piece of wall on a wall, exploring how a flat
surface can be part of a three-dimensional volume that is a room. The Blocks, of the same year, are
unmistakably sculptural, sitting as they do on the floor a specifically measured distance out from the
wall; they are actually lengths of two-by-four, painted white, each containing an abstract, highly colored
image which goes around the block rather than appearing on only one surface. Consequently, these
pieces resemble the red 9th Painting for the Wall in that a painted image is used to both deny and verify a
volumetric, sculptural form.

Tuttle has also done ten rope pieces (1973), made of various lengths of ordinary wash cord, cut
and slightly frayed at the ends and secured to the wall at precisely measured points relative to eye level
(or derived from a five-foot center point). They are startling because, seen from a distance, they are
powerfully present in the room despite their very small size (the 3rd Rope Piece, in the first installation, is
only three inches long). What happens in viewing them is that the rope loses its substance and the
shadow just underneath it becomes a stronger visual presence than the piece itself. The rope isolates the
wall rather than vice versa, playing a peculiar trick of figure-ground reversal with its environment as well
as with itself.

The wooden slat "markers" of the same year are cut from quarter-inch plywood, approximately
three feet high. Generally, the pieces are long rectangles, angled up at the top end. They are placed flush
with the wall and, with two exceptions, begin perpendicular to the floor; on part of each piece, the edges
are painted white. Where this white edge exists, it throws a kind of obverse shadow onto the wall, that is,
a shadow-edge of reflected, bright light. (One of the pieces is painted white only along a two-inch bottom
segment of one side, giving it an aura of mystery and hermeticism, a secret to be discovered upon close
observation.) In many of Tuttlc's winks, most especiallv in Ten Kinds of Memory and Memory Itself, if one
length of string crosses another properly, an area of brightness or intensity is created which Tuttle
considers an important element in his pieces. In addition to the reversal of light and shadow caused by
the edge reflection in the slats, the works themselves occupy space in such a way as to again reverse the
expected figure-ground configuration, but in a different way from the expected substance/shadow
interplay of the rope pieces. The plywood markers seem to literally cut through planar space so that the
wall seems to be split or torn open to reveal the plywood. Each marker is located in the middle of a wall,
and it is essential for it to be isolated and centered in order to activate the space. Tuttle's ability to force
the environment into the service of the work is necessitated by the work itself, rather than by any
arbitrary desire on Tuttle's part to take up a lot of room. After several attempts, all unsuccessful, to
situate more than one piece on a wall (even a very large one) for the exhibition, curatorial prudence
capitulated to the stubborn demand oi the work itself. (This, incidentally, is not the case with the paper
octagonals, which < an be installed either singly or, as in the second installation, together on a wall, each
bisected in this instance by a ridge where the four-foot partitions joined each other, nor is it true of the
cloth octagonals. i

That Tut tie's work draws attention to the architectural peculiarities of any space in which it is
situated has been noted as both a positive and negative aspect of the work. Kspeciallv in Ins 1971!
exhibition at The Clocktower, where all twelve paper octagonals were shown, the peculiarities of the
space wen ver) noticeable because of the high degree of perceptual acuity required to locate the
o( tagonals. ( )ne critic remarked that, perceptually, the plywood pieces changed when seen singly from
when seen in a group:

Though the individual pieces are deliberate!) unostentatious in scale, they take on environmental

proportions when viewed as a group. For then they seem to play off one another, appropriating the room
itself as their arena: the white walls perform as both positive and negative elements.6

A journalist, on the other hand, complained, in reviewing the Whitney exhibition:

The trouble with Tut tie's art is that it is mi national: that is. overly dependent upon its setting for its effect.
Like the plywood slats that are "straked" into the floor against a wall, the works merely accent the given
space. The pieces relinquish so much of their formal autonomy that thev succeed only in becoming a
perverse type of interior decoration/

The slats and the paper octagonals are the pieces which most obviously integrate with the environment,
but in fact all Tuttle's works have this effect; no matter how idiosyncratic the space, the room or setting
for the pieces becomes a specific framework without which the pieces cannot function. This is because a
work makes constant reference to what is outside itself— to us the viewers, to the space which houses it, to
a state of being which it is both part of and reflects. The work, in other words, is not self-referential but
operates as a language, in dialogue with the world which brought it into being and to which it eventually
must speak.

This is true of works which are not as closely integrated with the environment as the slat pieces
but appear to be self-contained objects clearly differentiated from their surroundings. The four Summer
\\ ood Pieces I 1 97 4 | are squat, bulky, peculiar-looking objects that do not appear to fit into a categorical
analysis of Tuttle's work. They look like small pieces of furniture hung on the wall, although their
function is completely obscured and their forms do not resemble anything at all. Their facture is rough
and ungainly, and they are more volumetric than any of the other works in the exhibition. They are most
closely related to several works done for a 1971 exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts in Texas
where Tuttle executed four large, freestanding plywood sculptures: Cube, Slope, The Rise and Double
Direction. These in turn related to the earliest 1964 paper cubes in their concerns. Tuttle said specifically
of the Dallas sculptures, which like the gallery walls were constructed of Ply- Veneer, that he had the idea
of "getting the wall material away from its two-dimensional covering function" and "making it do
three-dimensional work."" This concept relates to the Plack pieces of 1973 in which homasote, a building
material, acts as a relief sculpture on a wall.

Another series done in 1973, the colored triangles, are planar, brightly hued and akin to the
plywood markers in that the) originate on the ground plane flush against a wall. 1st Colored Triangle is
red. yellow and blue (top to bottom) and 2nd Colored Triangle is green and blue. They are surprisingly
different in their spatial effect, the former "lighting up" or occupying a gnat deal of visual space, the
la I lei two-colored triangle performing a figure-ground alteration similar to that of the plywood markets,
although in a more heavil) weighted way. The gravitational pull of these two works, as well as others
w hi< h sect n to propel themselves slowly into the ground rather than spring out of it, hint at the primal")
concern of the relationship ol the human body to Tuttle's work.

The three most recent groups of work, done during the past year, continue earlier investigations
perhaps in a more obdurate way. The ten Houston Works, done for an exhibition at the Cusack Gallery
in September 197"). are the smallest pieces Tuttle has done to date, but the proportion of size to thickness
ol material and to color saturation makes them analogous to the 19715 Placks. The I louston Works are
made from the rounded ends of coffee stirrers, colored with felt-tip pen (although one, the 8th Houston
M ork, in the second installation, was covered with a pale lavender paper because it was impossible to find
a fell tip pen in this particular color). The most perceptually elusive of these, the ninth in the series (third
installation), has two green lines along either side; when isolated on a wall, as n was in the Whitney

exhibition, it is so small as to often go unnoticed. Tuttle says of these tiny, exquisitely sensitive works that
they are "about states of loving," just as the string pieces were about memory. This is perhaps because the
most minute differences between each of the Houston Works— changes in color, direction of the curved
versus straight edge of the stirrer, the kinds of shadows cast by the pieces, their placement on the
wall— become enormously significant in proportion to their tiny size.

The Rome Pieces, also done in 1975, are equally refined in visual terms, that is, they are small
and difficult to see because they are composed of paper pasted to the wall, with pencil lines intersecting
or underlining them. However the Rome Pieces are more cerebral and analytical, more rigorously
diagrammatic in feeling than the lyrical and chromatic Houston Works. They continue Tuttle's
concerns with the interplay of substance and shadow. Of the three works in the Whitney show, the 16th
and Nth Rome Pieces (first and second installations, respectively ) have graphite lines drawn on the wall in
relation to the pasted paper in such a way as to make the mark and the extraordinarily delicate shadow
cast by the thin edge of paper ambiguously interchangeable. In the 16th Rome Piece, a tiny triangle of
pasted white paper has a graphite line drawn just along the lower edge of the triangle. In the Nth Rome
Piece, two vertical, rectangular pieces of white paper are pasted at their outer edges; where they meet in
the center a graphite line is drawn but it is barely visible, if at all, through the slight opening where the
pieces of paper are not attached. The 3rd Rome Piece (first installation) differs in that the pencil lines are
drawn along four sides of a five-sided paper figure, and when two of them are continued to twice their
length, they cross and form an X, suggesting the reiteration of that paper shape on their opposite side.
Through precisely measured lines, the ghost of an image is made to appear in the mind's eye; logic
dictates the incomplete poetry of the piece. Whereas the graphite line here suggests the substantive
aspect of the piece (i.e., the paper), the substance that does not exist on the other side of the work becomes
a ghost image or shadow because it is only implied.

The Cincinnati Pieces, done for an exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Center in that city,9
constitute another mode of exploring this same question of illusion and substance. Cut from
two-by-fours painted white, the ends angled, they are hung from a hole drilled in the back of each
piece— as were the earlier wood pieces like Yellow Dancer or .1 \h Wednesday, both 1965— and tilt according
to an exactly calculated gravitational pull which Tuttle duplicates by usiny a brow n paper prototype to
(icier mine the placement of the nail on the wall. Each piece is cut at a different angle and situated alone
on a wall, tilting at a different angle. Once again, the pale, chalk-white chunky object, whose cast
shadow is visually as substantial as the wood itself, becomes mysteriously ephemeral, a "ghost of its
former self."

Seen 0U1 ol context, that is, prior to installation, the Placks. Blocks. Wood Slats, Cincinnati
Pieces and even the cloth octagonals (crumpled into a canvas bag) do not look like anything at all. The
wire pieces, made from florist's w ire uncoiled directly from the spool, and the rope pieces, cut and frayed
on the spot, are not even visible as potential an before installation. Rather, Tuttle's works spring into
being as though, like a< tors waiting patiently in the wings, they come to life only as the play commences.
I hus, although the) arc < learly obje< is when installed, they deny their nature at the same time they
confirm ii. I>\ being ephemeral and dependent upon the artist and the audience to animate them.

Tuttle's art is. in this sense, one ol de material izat ion. Even when the works are substantive and
bulky, they can be made and disassembled rapidly, and their materials can be easily obtained almost
anyw here. Tuttle has thus allowed the value of his work to be shared with its environment rather than
with its materials, and with the artist's activity rather than his product. Tuttle talks about how much he
enjoys executing his work. Having "the possibility of immortalizing an activity that's right for you (like
making the wire pieces) is quite harmless, it's fun; and in a way this is quite exciting."

A summary of what Tuttle's work is— and looks like— leads the viewer to trace a development of
increasing dematerialization until the 1970 paper octagonals, and to retrace from that point until the
present a continuation of the sense of visual dematerialization without an accompanying decrease in the
material itself. That is, Tuttle seems to have explored the extent to which he could render the work
ephemeral without depending upon the thickness or thinness of the material for such an effect.

One finds that Tuttle's work has also become increasingly situational, that is, inseparable from
the specific time and space in which it is seen. He has also made it clear in his work that, in a
period— particularly between 1965 and 1970— when painting and sculpture seemed to polarize and to
occupy separate critical arenas, his was an art which was not about its own conventions, but about states
of thinking, seeing and feeling— states of being— to which the issue of whether it was painting or
sculpture was totally irrelevant.

Several questions concerning the nature of Turtle's art, outside its formal aspects, remain to be answered,
and these are questions not of what and how, but of why. The most important aspect of Tuttle's work
appears to center on its affective nature, that is, on why work of such apparent simplicity, modesty and
casualness is able to create such a strong response. This is not to say that the response to Tuttle's work is
always the same but, if the reactions to the Whitney exhibition are typical, they are never ones of
indifference. It seems that the response generally centers on the issue of how the work could do so much
with so little. The tiny 1 0th Rope Piece (second installation), for instance, prompted one observer to
remark on its astonishing poignancy and prompted another to steal it. One critic admires Tuttle's abilitv
to "control an enormous expanse of space with the slightest amount of physicalitv."1" Another complains
that "the spectator soon becomes so sensitized to the lilliputian scale and teeny-weeny subtleties of
Tuttle's work that he begins to scrutinize ordinary hairline cracks in the wall."" It is clear that Tuttle's
work, in order to be seen at all, focuses the viewer's attention in a particular way, forcing a concentration
that alters ones vision not only of the pieces, but of everything around them as well, even to the extent of
compelling one to pay attention to the very act of paying attention.

This phenomenon can perhaps be explained by understanding that, in Tuttle's work, as in the
work of most artists who are concerned with anything other than the purely formal aspects of their art,
the work is the product of a dialogue between interior and exterior states. This is a classic concept.
sometimes seen as a translation of emotional states onto the canvas (as in Abstract Expressionism), as a
way of finding pictorial images to represent a narrative situation, or as a system of visual equivalences for
spoken language. The artist does not, even in a painting of the most realistic, photographic image,
consider that internal and external events are exactly the same; one's attitude about an object, for
example, i an alter the way one sees the object.

In the translation of internal events to external events, we assume that the two are different, that
w hile external events have a physicalitv to them, to be accommodated internally they must "lack at least
the physicalitv of their external counterparts."'- Because much of the peculiarity of Tuttle's work lies in
the fact that it is not only physically insubstantial, but that the objects he makes do not, as is his
intention, resemble anything but themselves, we are led to assume indeed, to feel distinctly that he is
interested in the expression of interior states rather in a reexamination of the physical world. Thisqualit)
is responsible for the metaphysical, poetic, transcendent feeling occasioned by the presence of Tuttle's
woik. just as it is also responsible for its "quietude" or unobtrusiveness. This gentle silence is unnerving
because it demands a great deal from the observer; time, patience, care, attention to detail, a slow search
foi meaning, foi clarity. The work comes into focus slowly and cannot be grasped — or sometimes even
seen— all at on< e or easily, so that its value as entertainment is negligible.

Tuttle's work, in other words, does not resemble things in the world because he is exploring the
presence of nonphysical states in himself. Examples of such nonphysical things, which are part of interior
states, are the mental categories of time and space, beginning and end, part and whole, singular and
plural, equal and different, cause and effect; also, the category of number, and other nonspecific mental
categories that are necessary but not sufficient aspects of works of art, like line, point, area or volume.'3
These "pure" mental categories do not directly affect or change the observable qualities of things; that is,
if we choose to see the top of Tuttle's First Green Octagonal (1967) as its beginning, or the bottom as its
beginning, this will affect how we see the piece but will not change the work's actual color, material,
shape, size or proportions. That Tuttle is concerned with pure mental categories becomes clear when
watching him install the cloth octagonals, because he pays no attention whatsoever to how they are
hung; the same piece, hung on a loosely vertical axis on the wall in the first installation, was shown lying
on the floor in the second, and on the wall again, horizontally on the diagonal, in the third installation.
Similarly, whether one of the forty-eight wire pieces is seen as a whole piece or part of a series does not
affect its observable physical properties, but rather conceptually enriches its simple and straightforward
appearance. The limitations of formal description in dealing critically with Tuttle's work have been
noted by several astute critics of his work. Carter Ratcliff commented that "Tuttle arranges it so that
there is no end to a formal description of his new works nor any sense that such a description would lead
far if elaborated."14 Susan Heinemann, similarly, noted that

a physical description of Richard Tuttle's new work seems totalis inadequate to the occasion. One does
not see Tuttle's pieces as self-contained objects, as hermetic repositories of meaning. In fact, one doesn't
merely "see" Tuttle's works; one experiences them through one's body. . . . Tuttle's pieces are more like
markers, indices by which one measures rather than enacts one's situational space, one's being in the
world. ''

Much of Tuttle's work is a translation into objects of interior states which have no physical
analogue, and because as art objects they are so unfamiliar to us, they exist only when we pay attention
to them. In fact, Selvio Ceccato notes:

It is obvious that nothing could be mentally "present" for us without the intervention of atten-
tion. . . . For the constitution of ever) mental construct, that is of ever) possible content of thought and of
thought itself, the essential activity is that which we call attentional.16

Interestingl) . ( !e< < ato points out that attention can be applied by the mind only to the functioning of
other organs— the car. the hand, the mouth, the nose and, especially relevant here, the eyes— for "discrete
intervals of time, ranging from a tenth of a second to a second and a half." If one tries to prolong it. the
attempt produces a hypnotic state in which the "hold" of the attention is dulled.17 Thus, the
semihypnotic quality caused by looking attentively and continuously at a Tuttle work may be
responsible in part foi the experience of the work being described as a "meditative" one.

It is the memory, however, that serves to link moments of pure attention together. Attention is
also directed not only on the act of "seeing" the piece, but on the mental categories previously mentioned
i i.e.. space time, beginning, end. part, w hole-, etc.), as well as on the effect of the whole. Thus attention is
not isolated 01 fragmented but constitutes a part of a changing series of relationships between physical
and "psychical" observation, that is. feeling, foe using, thinking, reacting, etc.

Physical observation is observation localized in space: "psychical" observation is localized in
time.

Thus physical and psychical things always arise in pairs: furthermore, the physical thing will always be
situated in a given place, separate from and adjoining another physical thing in another place, and the
ps\ chical thing v\ ill always be situated at a given moment in time, separate from another psychical thing
at another moment.'"

This observation about the nature of "things'" (which are the simplest categorical constructs) may help
to explain why Tuttle's work requires so much space and time in order to be apprehendable in a clear
way.

Tuttle's work is perceptually elusive because he seems to have created pieces that exist in
moments of change. For example, the paper octagonals could be said to vacillate between states of being
because, on their simplest level, they can be seen as light on dark or vice versa depending not only on the
time of day, but on the direction from which they are viewed. More intricately, Tuttle

sets simplicity against complexity. This (perceptual ) tension is at the edges of his paper objects and leaves
them physically, formally, blank and no more; they are not, for example, blank squares or blank circles.
When one feels this tension, one's feelings for the work can begin; one can sense the constants which lie
beneath our perceptions of absence and presence (our perceptions of possibility I. One could characterize
presence as extreme complexity and absence as extreme simplicity. Tuttle's new works bring one to an
understanding that these characterizations are interchangeable. This is a felt understanding which has
the power to dissociate blankness from emptiness.19

Similarly, the wire pieces are trapped in the process of change; the coiled wire, tracing a drawn line,
retains a ghost of its original form as it is released from the wall. It is as though the memory of its own
history had been incorporated into the piece at the moment of its transformation into another state.
Because memory serves as a bridge between periods of attention and states of change, it is an
important aspect of Tuttle's work, both intentional and not. Some of the key functions of memory
relevant to Tuttle's work are those of

literal recall (which makes it possible to have present again the operation already performed without
modifying it ) and summarized recall (which makes it possible to have present again the operation ahead)
performed in abbreviated, condensed form). . . .J"

In Ten A'/Ws of Memory and Memory Itself, a group of eleven string pieces or "drawings" on the
floor. Tuttle has choreographed each piece so that the work can be recreated by repeating the movement
patterns which dictate how the string is to be placed on the floor. Each group of movements, resulting in
a single piece, is predicated upon the dimensions of the body, so that Tuttle might begin, for instance, by
crouching with the ball of string in his right hand, then bringing it around behind him, transferring it to
the other hand, then cutting the string off at a point just parallel to where the movement began. Other
works are made by cutting a piece of string approximately one-third as large as the span between the
artist's hands, held at shoulder width, then throwing the piece in a loosely curvilinear fashion to one side,
cutting a slightlv smaller piece and throwing thai next to the first, and so on. In other pieces, siring is laid
out so that one strand lies on top of another; then their positions are reversed by the top string's being
carefull) threaded underneath.

In ( )< tobet 197"). Tuttle and nine others, tn\ self among them, experimented with executing the
stung pieces by following his "choreograph) " exactl) . Although the works we executed differed in size
and in quality, those that were best were clearly those that were least self-conscious, least regular and
whose lines had the most "character," in addition to the correct proportions. We found it extremely

First installation view. Ten Kinds of Memory and Memory Itself. 1973. String;
most pieces fit into the area of a 36" circle. Courtesy of Daniel Weinberg
Gallery. San Francisco, and Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris.

i ;

difficult to achieve the intense, nervous, but quiet feeling of Tuttle's own string drawings. Our pieces
were like body pictographs resulting in handwriting of a very personal nature that involved more than
just the arm and hand. We also found that the pieces that were visually the simplest were often the most
difficult to execute, and that the visual "weight" and "brightness" created in the interstices where the
strings crossed each other were not only possible to see when attention was focused on them, but were also
essential to the success of the pieces.

The simplest, rounded semicircle (the "memory itself of the work's title) was, according to
Tuttle, taken from the memory of a dimension (the distance between two parts) of an earlier wire
sculpture. This kind of summarized recall, recreating a partial aspect of another work, is different from
the literal recall called into use in making the other ten parts, which can be made over and over again
almost identically. Tuttle discussed the eleven-part piece as a way of solving a problem he had set up in
some wire sculptures not seen in this exhibition; they are a large group of works, shown at Daniel
Weinberg Gallery, San Francisco, in 1973. The problem, as he saw it, was that once he had executed a
wire sculpture, he remembered how it looked, and this affected the work the next time it was redone. The
string pieces are about a gestural or body memory rather than a visual memory; how the pieces look
when done does not affect them when redone. Thus their "correct" execution is more a matter of how one
feels while they are being made. In the wire/graphite/shadow works, however, Tuttle says that he "tries
to get into an area where memory is disposable. I try to execute them as though for the first time, every
time."

The making of each piece is involved with the ambiguity of things caught in a state of change,
and with change itself— in the arbitrary directional placement of the pieces, in the perceptual shifts
occasioned by some of the works, reenactment or re-creation, and in their situational flexibility. Change
cannot be considered apart from the temporal dimension because change is transition and transition is
movement in time as well as space.

Much of Tuttle's work also has to do with gesture, that is, the piece as the result of a gestural
process. Even where this is not so, however, as in The Twenty-Six Series where each letter exists as an object,
the pieces are arranged gesturally, as though they had been randomly "thrown" up onto the wall. It is
also interesting to note that most of the pieces in the series suggest letters of the alphabet that are in
varying stages of physical distortion or transformation. Watching Tuttle install The Twenty-Six Series on
the floor of the Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Galleries (third installation) was instructive. He flung
them onto the floor, and after they had all been scattered, he further upset any intentional order or
"artfulness" in their arrangement by running around the gallery gently kicking the pieces into a
haphazard configuration; thus their ultimate placement is a result of movement.

In the wire/graphite/shadow drawings especially, the execution and placement of the pieces is
not only the result of temporary gesture, but is temporal in feeling as well. The fleeting, elusive quality of
Tuttle's work, its visual "pace," is particularly apparent in the 6th Wire Bridge. 1971 (first installation),
where the three pieces of wire act as visual velocities. Time can only be plotted as length, and relative
time (i.e., shorter, longer, faster, slower) is measurable by succession. This work places three wire lines of
increasing lengths loosely parallel to each other on the wall. Because the change from one line to another
is so readily apparent in juxtaposition, it becomes clear that the temporality of the piece lies in an area
between

the antipodes of the hi i man experience ol I line, (i.e.) exact repetition, which is onerous, and unlet tered
variation, which is chaotic. ... Inventions, which are commonly ihoui>ht to mark great leaps in

development and to be extremely rare occurrences, are actually one with the humble substance of
everyday behavior, whereby we exercise the freedom to vary our actions a little.-1

Most of Tuttle's works exist in groups or in open-ended series, in which each of the works varies
subtlv— and sometimes blatantly— from the others; moreover, each group grows out of one or more works
of another series. This is why grouping a cloth octagonal, a paper octagonal and a wire octagonal
together (first installation), or a rope piece, a painted wooden work, a Block and a Plack (third
installation), is a more accurate way of seeing Tuttle's work than in a homogeneous installation. Tuttle
has used various materials toward similar ends, whereas certain of the wire pieces, when compared to
each other, are about completely different issues and are often more closely related to pieces in another
series, from another period of his career.

The gestural quality of Tuttle's work and the swiftness and simplicity of execution which have
led him to refer to himself as a "'hit and run artist" are aspects of the work's relation to the body as well as
to temporality, since the body is our primary metaphor and vehicle for being-in-the-world.

Tuttle describes his work, from time to time, in these terms, seeing the octagonals as being
"about skin, while the alphabet, the Cincinnati Pieces, and the rope and wire pieces too are about bone."
One could take this analogy one step further and say that the wall paintings might be about blood, thus
completing the cycle of the body as object, as producer, and as container. In a less metaphoric sense, the
paper and cloth octagonals function as covering membranes, whereas the more substantive pieces are
structural in nature and suggest a skeletal support rather than a surface. The "skeletal" pieces are,
interestingly, the most hermetic, appearing to have been uncovered or exposed inadvertently, and it is
perhaps this qualitv that endows them at their best with such animate qualities as poignancy or
tenderness, without any accompanying anthropomorphism in the form of the work itself.

Moreover, the sense of gravity, of body orientation, is marked in Tuttle's work. The plywood
Slats, for example, are distinctly vertical, aligned on the same plane as the standing human body, yet do
not become a metaphor for that body. Similarly, the Blocks, placed on the floor, have an astonishing
gravitational pull, and create an Alice-in-VVonderland sensation of our own miniaturization and/or
aggrandizement in their viewing. Even the wire pieces, as Tuttle himself indicates, are subject to gravity.
"They got longer and longer and seemed to want to touch the floor. They don't, but if they did touch, the
place where they met the floor would have the kind of brightness or intensitv of the string works, where
the pieces crossed."

Body awareness is heightened not only by the strong sense of gravity in these pieces, but by a
focus (in equilibrium that is especially apparent in the drawings; most of them are concerned with issues
ol motion, balance, potential and actual displacement, or (like the wire drawings) the act of exploration
which the body— especially the hand as a primary instrument of touch— is engaged in.

In the large pieces, which arc so dependent upon measurement for their execution, each
measurement is taken from the proportions of Tuttle's own body; the string works are dictated bv the
span of his arms or the width of his torso. The Rome Pieces and rope works— in fact, most of the wall
pieces in general— are situated at eye level or at a specified distance relative to eye level. Balance is
similarly an intrinsic aspei t ol the body, balancing upright against gravity, for instance, or using the
arms, extended, to assess different weights and tensions; the third installation seemed to be especially
about this kind ol balance. "

In the installation of the cloth octagonals, the tin alphabet, the wire drawings and the string
pieces. Tuttle readies himself as a dancer would for the activity of tnakin» the work present to himself
and to us. That so much of Tuttle's work is a result of body activity is partly caused by the fact that

physical activity is the most direct and common means we have of translating interior states into external
expression; in a very direct way, frowning, smiling, closed or open body positions, etc., are our primarv
communicative means, because they are experientially rather than analytically comprehensible. Our
own experience of our bodies is "pre-scientific," primitive and immediate.23

In the mimeographed handout I wrote for distribution during the Tuttle show, I indicated that
the work is "felt" rather than "understood," a statement which was criticized as being equally true of
other art as well. Certainly feeling and understanding cannot be separated entirely from each other, but
there are certain works which require thought in order to be accessible and others which require
experience, and these are not necessarily the same. This distinction is in a sense the basis for dealing with
the pure conceptual art of Kosuth, for instance, as opposed to the sensuous, ephemeral and unanah tic-
work of a painter like Agnes Martin. In examining how thought itself is constituted, differentiating
between thinking and perceiving is instructive; the former involves the construction of an ordered world of
objects, exact and stable but clumsily bureaucratic as well, whereas perception is quicker and more
flexible, spontaneously ingenious, but less reliable and more uncertain. Moreover, thought has to be
abstract, ordered into categories at the expense of finer shades of meaning. Thought involves
measurement and exactitude, whereas perception is more fleeting.

Some objects can only be attained through thought, as for instance all the pure constructs of science.
These objects are not to be experienced. Their purpose is to form a basis for thinking. Other
object-complexes on the contrary, are nut accessible to thought, because they fall apart during analysis, and
have to be experienced directly. ■'*

The distinctions between description and expression, thinking and perceiving, analyzing and ex-
periencing are classic ones; Tuttle's work is based upon the former categories of each pair in its
conception, while its execution and effect are concerned with the latter.

The intensity of feeling in the experience of Tuttle's work, as opposed to a precise logical
understanding of it, is partly responsible for the critical description of the work as childlike and/or
primitive. Tuttle himself once wrote, "I would really like to be ignorant."25

This statement can be understood in several ways, but the possibility of making art which is, in
Tuttle's words, "purely motivated," that is, a direct translation of internal states, is one valid
interpretation. Another interpretation may be linked to Tuttle's insistence on "investigation" in his
work, so that the hand, for instance, does not translate what it already knows onto the wall, but discovers
what it knows in the moment of execution. In this way, each piece can be remade as if for the first time.
Similarly, three near-identical drawings will seem entirely different, microscopic adjustments becoming
apparent to the viewer not in a visually measurable way, but by means of a perceptual and emotional
(i.e., experiential) shift; thus none of the three "identical" drawings are, in fact, the same.

The act of seeking, of investigation, causes a tremulous, tentative, vulnerable line to emerge
from the gesture of the hand and arm; this childlike quality in the line is characteristic of Tuttle's graphic
work. Moreover, the self-referential quality of Tuttle's work, its simplicity in terms of "thingness."
resembles those forms made by children at an early stage in the development of their ability to
"represent."

I he first draw n "rounding" surely results from t lie movements of the hand and the arm. . . . For the child,
"thingness" is perfectly represented by the rounding, because the child primarily intends the general
enclosed character ol things. The circle not only represents this quality because of its concentrated shape,
but also because the surface inside a contoui seems more dense than its surroundings.26

The densit) of Tuttle's configurations, especially the early wooden ones, their mat building- block color.

lf>

their casualness and simplicity of facture, their tactility are responsible for the innocent, childlike quality
they afford; nothing, evidently, could be more enigmatic than simplicity.

Robert Pincus-Witten noted the "infant-like thrust" of the 1964 paper cubes and remarked that
the wood reliefs resembled "the elements of a child's fitted jigsaw puzzle— large, squat, simplified
shapes."-7 At that point in Tuttle's work— that is, up to and including The Twenty-Six Series ( 1967) or "tin
alphabet"— this childlike quality is especially marked. In fact, although the naturalistic, animistic aspects
of this work separate it from work which was to follow, these are also aspects of a child's perception of
causal relations, according to psychologists. Therefore, for the child, "material objects, living or not, are
regarded as having an animal spirit that makes them behave as they do"; similarly, " 'artijicialism,'
according to which all events are regulated by some humanlike entity," and naturalism, which is "the
acceptance of impersonal natural forces as the governing agent in many events" '" are part of a child's
perception of the world until a certain age. The animate quality in Tuttle's earlv work, the feeling that
the pieces are informed by a kind of personality of their own, and Tuttle's own somewhat fatalistic
attitude about the work, as though it had a will and life of its own, seem to substantiate the analogy. "I
am not responsible for my work." he has said. However, this animism or naturalism does not render the
work anthropomorphic; it still does not resemble, as work, anything but itself, although it is informed by
a spirit of its own. Even the pictorialism of Hill, Fire, Fountain, Flower and other 1965 pieces has more to do
with Tuttle's expressed intent, via the titles he gave to the pieces, than with their resemblance to those
actual objects or events.

What is childlike is often equated with what is primitive, and in fact the pictographic or
ideogrammatic aspect of these pieces resembles hieroglyphics, but not those of Egypt or other classical
civilizations. There is, for example, a little-known pictorial symbol-language in use in the eastern
provinces of southern Nigeria called nsibidi, which differs from hieroglyphics in that it contains no trace
of an alphabet.2" The linear signs resemble the shapes found in Tuttle's work, especially the drawings and
the wire pieces. Other aspects of nsibidi resemble Tuttle's work, for instance the fact that there is no order
of writing, that a sign may be horizontal, vertical or oblique according to the preference of the writer,
that the same thing can be expressed by different signs (so that many acts or states of mind are
represented by one sign representing men, for instance), or even that the same sign can stand for different
things. The interest here lies not in any direct connection between this primitive language and Tuttle's
configurations, but in the quality of the pictorial language which, in its directness, simplicity, and
interchangeable aspects is analogous to Tuttle's use of forms in series and groupings.3" This is perhaps
another reason why, each time a piece is remade by Tuttle in a different context or environment, its
meaning alters slightly, and it becomes, in effect, a new piece.

Language of any kind, of course, is a system of symbols and the language of visual arts is an
especially complex symbol-system. For the most part, verbal and written language has been the main
subject matter of semiotics (i.e., a language used to talk about signs, and to understand the rules for the
use of signs), but investigation into other aspects of signs, such as diagrams and pictorial images, has
become intensified in recent years.31 One purpose of signs is "to describe experiences or objects";'-' if we
consider the ephemeral objects created by Tuttle to be visual signs this reinforces the idea of their facture
as the result of a translation of interior states to exterior ones.

One reason, perhaps, for the attendant confusion about Tuttle's work has to do with the fact
that the use of signs invokes a system of expectations. According to information theory, if our
expectation about a siyn is completely accurate, we don't sjet any new information from it because we
know in advance what is going to happen. Orr the other hand, if the sign has no probability at all, the
message becomes meaningless. The "value" of a work of art. therefore, depends on a balance in the

degree of new as opposed to old information provided; it must be familiar enough to be recognized as a
work of art, but not so familiar as to be mundane and therefore indistinguishable from the objects of
everyday experience.

Although an appreciation of Tuttle's work depends upon a kind of perceptual acuity, and
requires us to focus our attention on the act of seeing, as well as on what we are seeing, the results of this
visual alteration are startling and often moving.

Looking at Tuttle's work is like reading a friend's diary; the work is full of secrets hidden among
the facts. There are encounters with known and unknown aspects of another personality, glimpses of a
shared world seen through another's eyes, moments of humor, wit and irony, intentional and not. One
feels, looking at Tuttle's work, that we have stumbled onto a private place. Some of the visual events in
this place are strange and eccentric, some are sensuous, and some are too hermetic to be understood.
There is always, in the work, a sense of integrity in the translation of interior states of being to exterior
events; Tuttle is not afraid to contradict himself, to be vulnerable, or occasionally to fail. What is most
beautiful and moving about Tuttle's work is that moment when, in dialogue with it, we are able to
recognize ourselves.

Marcia Tucker

Footnotes

1. All quotes, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from
conversations with the author in the summer and fall of
1975.

_' ( christian Norberg-Schulz, Intentions in Architecture, (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, 1965), p. 72.

i. Robert Pincus-VVitten, "The Art of Richard Tuttle,"
Artforum, vol. 8 (February 1970), p. 65.

1 Robert M. Murdock, Introduction, Richard Tuttle
(Dallas: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 1971), n.p.

■ I )orothy Alexander, "Conversations with the Work and
the Artist," Mel Bochner, Barry Le Va, Dorothea Rockbume,
Richard Tuttle (Cincinnati: Contemporary Arts ('enter.
1975), p. 42.

6. Nancy Foote in "Review of Exhibitions," \rt in America,
sol. 62 (May/June 1971). p. 102.

7. David Bourdon, "Playing Hide and Seek in the VVhit-
ney," The Villagi Voice, vol. 20 (September 29, 1975), p.
97

H. Quoted in Murdock, Richard Tuttle, n.p.

') 'Mel Uochner. Iiarr\ I.e Va, Dorothea Rockbume,
Richard Tuttle,'' Contcmpoiaiv Ails Center. Cincin-
nati, Ohio, January H February 16, 1975.

10 John Perreault, "Tuttle's Subtle Output," Soho Wtekly

\,,, ■, Septembei I!!. 1975, p. 22.

11 Bourdon, "Playing Hide and Seek in the Whitney," p
97.

12 Selvio Ceccato The Mind, Thought and Language,"
Scienci and Literaturt V«i Lenses for Criticism, Edward \l
Jennings, ed. (New Vmk Anchoi Books, 1970), p 107

13. Ibid., p. 114.

14. Carter Ratcliff in "New York Letter," Art International,

vol. 14 (May 20, 1970), p. 76.

15. Susan Heinemann in "Reviews." Ail/mum. vol. 12 (June
1974), p. 75.

16. Ceccato, "The Mind, Thought and Language." p. 112.

17. Ibid., p. 113.

18. Ibid., pp. 119-20.

19. Carter Ratcliff in "New York Letter." Art International,
vol. 14 (May 20, 1970). p. 76.

20. Ceccato, "The Mind, Thought and Language.'' p. 120.

21. George Kubler, Thi Shape of Time (New Haven, Conn.,
and London: Yale University Press. 1962), p 6 I

22. Donald G. Macrae, "The Body and Social Metaphor,"
The Body as a Medium q) Expn fsion, Jonathan Benthall and
Ted Polhemus, ed, (New York: LP. Dutton & Co.,
1975), p. 61.

23. Ibid., p. 67.

24. Norberg-Schulz, Intentions in Architecture, p, 62.

25. Hermann Kern, Richard Tultlt Das II Papierachleck und
Wandmalerein [Richard Tuttle The llih Papei Octagonal and
Paintings for thi Wall], (Munich: Kunstraum, 1973), p. 8.

26. Norberg-Schulz, Intentions in Architecture, p 76

27. Roberl Pincus-Witten, "The An ol Richard I utile."

\rforum, vol 8 (February 1970), p 6 i

28. L. Joseph Stone and Joseph Church. Childhood and

[dolescenct (New York: Random House. 1957). p. 183.

29. Rev. J.K. Macgregor, B.D., "Some Notes on Nsibidi,"
Journal oj tin Anthropological Institute, vol. 39 (1909), pp.

209-19.

30. Incidentally, the word nsibidi comes from the Ibo word
ribidi, which means to play: to play has, according to
Macgregor. a wider use in the native language than in
English.

It stands for all the shades of meaning from sport
to drama. Because the dramas, as we may call the
native dances, are religious, it has also a sense of to
bewitch. Because the beat of the heart is regular
as the beat of the drum, it is also applied to the
beating of the heart. (Macgregor. "Some Notes on
Nsibidi," p. 210.)

I do not wish to can\ the analog) too fai but only to
point out that the playful, witty or ironic quality in
Tuttle's work, and especially in the 196 1 67 pieces, has to
do with the fact thai the works like The Twenty-Six Serit i
can be arranged at whim and in an) l<>< al ion or direction,
i.e., horizontal or vert ii al. on the Horn oi walls Similar l\ .
the physical aspects of Tuttle's works, their existence and
pla< ement as a result of gesture, or their re-creai ion i as in
the string pieces) by means of an elaborate choreography,
share the aspect of dance/drama/sign with that of the
primitive pictographic language. My thanks to Betty
Collings, Director of the Gallery at Ohio State Universi-
ty for having brought Macgregor's article to my atten-
tion.

31. Norberg-Schulz. Intentions in An Inlet line. p. 60.

32. Ibid.

Renderings ol various nsibidi figures by Katherine Sokolnikoff fro
illustrations in Rev. J.K. Macgregor's article (sec inn 29 and 30).

September 12, 1975

"To make something which looks like itself is... the problem,
the solution." Richard Tuttle, 1972

This exhibition of work by Richard Tuttle had its
genesis almost three years ago. At that time, Tuttle 's
work produced a sense of tension and bewilderment • The more
I looked at it (and there was not a great deal of his work
to be seen publicly at any one time) the more it resisted
interpretation, and the more elusive and ephemeral—materially
and conceptually--it seemed.

I have always considered that there are two basic
reasons for doing an exhibition; the first is to illustrate
and share with the public something one has discovered,
that is, something already known. The second is to discover
or explore something which is unknown in order to find out
for yourself what it is about. One is the mode of the
historian, the other the mode of the explorer. Both are
equally valid. Different kinds of work at different times
dictate which of the two attitudes underlies a specific
exhibition .

With this exhibition it is a case of exploring
the unknown. Tuttle' s work is most immediately and clearly
perceived on an intuitive, physical, experiential level;
it is "felt" rather than "understood," and lends itself
to a powerful, often transcendental physical assimilation
rather than to verbal analysis. For this reason, at the
time the exhibition was initially planned, I decided to
attempt a reversal of the traditional exhibition procedures.

Generally, works are requested from lenders well
in advance of the opening date of an exhibition; the
availability of works will often determine the scope of
the show. A catalogue is written months in advance in
order to have a critical text, photographs, biography,
bibliography and checklist available to the public on
the exhibition's opening date. Often the author of the
critical text depends upon reproductions of previously
unseen works, which are coming from abroad, for example,
or have been housed in private collections in remote areas
of the country, or which even no longer exist and must be
remade by the artist for the exhibition.

The impact, and indeed the meaning of Tuttle 's
work is dependent upon actual contact with it, even more than
the work of other artists. His pieces are unobtrusive,
materially simple or modest, and, like the paper octagons
of 1969, occasionally visible only at second glance; many
of the details of his work, such as the white painted
edges of the 1974 plywood slat pieces, cannot be seen at all
in reproduction, and are sometimes missed entirely by the
viewer even in direct confrontation. For this reason,

Page 2

I decided to begin writing the exhibition catalogue after
the show opens. In this way, my evaluation of Tuttle's
work will depend only on works I have actually seen and
handled, or works which, during the week of installation,
I will have had the opportunity to watch Tuttle himself
execute .

Tuttle has often said that, given a specific
space, there may only be one work which seems "right"
for it. Because his work is so dependent upon the space in
which it is installed or executed, many pieces will only
be borrowed at the last minute as the space requires
them. Only a very few works have been requested in advance,
and this is because they seem unequivocally essential to an
understanding of the body of his work in general. The
rest of the pieces, thanks to the generosity and flexibility
of the lenders, will have been gathered by us at the
eleventh hour.

Other deviations from the normal exhibition
procedure have also been made. Generally work is installed
and remains unchanged for the duration of the exhibition.
In the present instance, because it is difficult to see
Tuttle's work when it is crowded together, we have favored
a sparse installation which facilitates seeing the individual
pieces; for this reason, as well as because so little is
known of Tuttle's work, the works within each of several
groups (i.e. paper octagons, wire pieces, slat pieces) will
be changed at two-week intervals throughout the duration
of the show. Thus those interested in seeing more pieces
than could be installed without disrupting their individuality
can return to the Museum after each installation.

Tuttle must re-execute the works in each series
himself; as he does so, I will make a new selection of
drawings, which have been mounted in frames specially designed
by the artist to facilitate changing the works inside them.
It is my hope that the groupings of drawings will serve to
illuminate the range of Tuttle's inventiveness and perception,
as well as to clarify some of the issues contained in his
other work. The installation changes will occur on Tuesday,
October 7 and Tuesday, November 4, 1975.

Some of the qualities in Tuttle's work that first
provoked my attention, and which have held it since, are
personal; there is a purity and an integrity to these pieces
that places them, at least in the immediate sense, outside
comparison with work being done by other artists at present.
They are curiously poetic, childlike and tender. They are
unequivocal yet adaptable, unpretentious yet commanding.
On the other hand, the formal aspects of Tuttle's work are
equally fascinating; the work resists categorization, being

Page 3
neither painting nor sculpture. It is intellectually as
provocative as it is elusive, as conceptually strong as it
is materially self-sufficient. Tuttle makes work which is
direct, simple, physically unassuming, yet peculiarly moving.

These are only a few of the reasons for my desire
to know the work as intimately as possible and to allow it
to influence me directly before attempting to explicate it.
By organizing the exhibition in this manner, I hope to convey
the excitement of direct experience, analogous to that of a
visit to the artist's studio, where the confrontation between
the viewer and the work is most immediate, provocative,
difficult and rewarding.

Marcia Tucker
Curator

Richard Tuttle was born in Rahway , New Jersey, in
1941; he studied at Trinity College and Cooper Union. Major
solo exhibitions include :

Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, 1965, 1967, 1968,

1970, 1972, 1974

Galerie Schmela, Dusseldorf, Germany, 1968

Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Los Angeles, 1969

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, 1970

Galerie Zwirner, Cologne, Germany, 1970, 1974

Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 1971

Galerie Lambert, Paris, France, 1972, 1974

The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1972

Die Freunde der Bildenden Kunst Kunstraum, Munich, 1973

Galerie Heiner Friedrich, Munich, 1973

Galleria Francoise Lambert, Milan, 1973

Daniel Weinberg Gallery, San Francisco, 1973

Clocktower, New York, 1973

Galleria Toselli, Milan, 1974

Galleria Marilena Bonomo , Bari, Italy, 1974

Barbara Cusack Gallery, Houston, 1974

Nigel Greenwood Gallery, London, 1974

Parsons-Truman Gallery, New York, 1975

CEILING HEIGHTS

Main galleries 12' 10"
Auditorium. 12' 10V'

Whitney Galleries IVUV'

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All dimensions are in inches, height preceding width pret eding depth. In instant es where
exact measurements wen not possible, the artist made estimates qj size.

First installation view, left to right: 9th Paintingfor the Wall. 1970. Acrylic, 7 x
2". Collection of the artist. 1 0th Cloth Octagonal. 1968. Dyed cloth, 54".
Collection of Dr. Ruprecht Zwirner, Braunlingen, Germany. The Twenty-Six
Series. 1967. Soldered metal, each piece approximately 6-10". Collection of
Jost Herbig, Abholfach, Germany.

First installation view, left to right: Shadow. 1965. Painted wood, 47 x 22".
Collection of Robert Feldman, New York. 3rd Wood Slat. 1974. Plywood and
paint, 36 x 5 x 'A". Collection of Jock Truman, New York. 3rd Rope Piece.
1974. Rope and nails, lA x 3". Collection of the artist. 9th Painting for the Wall.
1970. Acrylic, 7 x 2". Collection of the artist, /oth Cloth Octagonal. 1968. Dyed
cloth, 54". Collection of Dr. Ruprccht Zwirner, Braunlingen, Germany. 8th
Cincinnati Piece. 1975. Painted wood, 5 x 10". Collection of the artist.

First installation view, left to right: Yellow Dancer. 1965. Painted plywood, 53
x 37". Collection of Judge and Mrs. Peter B. Spivak, Grosse Pointe,
Michigan. First Green Octagonal. 1967. Dyed cloth, 54 x 22". Collection of Jock
Truman, New York. 6th Wire Piece. 1972. Pencil, wire and nails, 39 x 26".
Collection of the artist. The Voices. 1966. Painted wood, 29 x 13'/2 x 3V2".
Collection of Bettv Parsons, New York.

First installation view, left to right: 8th Wood Slat. 1974. Plywood and paint,
36 x 3". Collection of Jock Truman, New York. 3rd Wood Slat. 1974. Plywood
and paint, 36 x 5 x lA". Collection of Jock Truman, New York. 9th Painting for
the Wall. 1970. Acrylic, 7 x 2". Collection of the artist.

View of first installation in Gertrude Yanderbilt Whitney Gallery. Fore-
ground: Paper Cubes. 1963. Paper, each 3x 3 x 3". Collection of Betty Parsons,
New York. Walls: Drawings. 1964-7.r). Distant wall: Ash Wirinisday. 1965.
Painted plywood, 21 x 40". Collection of Norman P. Joondeph, New York.

6th Wire Piece. 1972. Pencil, wire and nails, 39 x 26". Collection of the 20th Wire Piece. 1972. Pencil, wire and nails. 23 x 26". Collection of
artist. *he artist-

:«)

I6th Rome Piece. 1975. Pencil and paper, 1" equilateral triangle.
Collection of the artist.

\rd Ropi Piect 1974. Rope and nails, Vi x 3". Collection of the artist.

■

■: 17

' . ■ .v - \ . N

Paper Cubes. 1964. Paper, each 3 x 3 x 3". Collection of
Betty Parsons, New York.

OPPOSITE

The Voices. 1966. Painted wood, 29 x 13'/2 x 3'/2".
Collection of Betty Parsons, New York.

Grey Extended Seven. 1967. Dyed cloth, 39 x 59". Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Gift of
the Simon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

OPPOM I I

3rd Wood Slat. 1974. Plywood and paint, 3 x 5 x V2". Collection of Jock Truman, New York.

ildered metal, each piece approximately 6 10" Collection of Josl Herbig, Abholfach, Germany.

1 B *=1 : : : *

Second installation view, left to right: 1st Cincinnati Piece. 1975. Painted wood, 5 x 14". Collection of the
artist. 1st Summer Wood Piece. 1974. Wood, 24 x 24 x 2". Collection of the artist. 2nd Summer Wood Piece.
1974. Wood and rope, 10 x 24 x 5'/2". Collection of the artist.

)

Second installation view, left to right: Yellow Dancer. 1965. Painted plywood, 53 x SI". Collection of
Judge and Mrs. Peter B. Spivak, Crosse Pointe, Michigan. .1 \h Wednesday. 1965. Painted plywood, 21 x
40". Collection of Norman P. Joondeph, New York. 8th Painting foi the Wall. 1970. Acrylic, 24 x 24".
Collection of the artist. 2nd Wood Slat. 1974. Plywood and paint, 24 x 12". Collection of Jock Truman,
New York.

Second installation view, left to right: 2nd Summer Wood Piece. 1974. Wood and rope, 10 x 24 x 5W.
Collection of the artist. 3rd Summer Wood Piece. 1974. Wood, 24 x 24 x 5V6". Collection of the artist. The
Twenty-Six Series. 1967. Soldered metal, each piece approximately 6-10". Collection of Jost Herbig,
Abholfach, Germany. 2nd Wood Slat. 1974. Plywood and paint, 24 x 12". Collection of Jock Truman,
New York.

Second installation view, left to right: 3rd Summer Wood Piece. 1974. Wood, 10 x 24 x 5'/2". Collection of
the artist. 4th Summer Wood Piece. 1974. Cloth, wood and staples, 30 x 20 x 1". Collection of the artist.
2nd Wood Slat. 1974. Plywood and paint, 24 x 12". Collection of Jock Truman, New York.

Second installation view, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Gallery. Clockwise,
beginning at left: First Green Octagonal. 1967. Dyed cloth, approximately 54 x
22". Collection of Jock Truman, New York. Grey Extended Seven. 1967. Dyed
cloth, 39 x 59". Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Gift of the
Simon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. 10th Cloth
Octagonal. 1968. Dyed cloth, approximately 54". Collection of Dr. Ruprecht
Zwirner, Braunlingen, Germany. Untitled. 1967. Dyed cloth, approximately
38". Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Ronald K. Greenberg, St. Louis, Missouri.

OPPOSITE

Hth Painting /or the Wall. 1970. Acrylic, 24 x 24". Collection of the artist.

lilt

hi Summer Wood Piece. 1974. Wood, 24 x 24 x 2". Collection of the artist.

OPPOSITE

2nd Wood Slat. 1974. Plywood and paint, 24 x 12". Collection of Jock Truman, New York.

3rd Summer Wood Piece. 1974. Wood, 24 x 24 x 5". Collection of the artist.

OPPOSITE

2nd Summer Wood Piece. 1974. Wood and rope, 10 x 24 x 5'/2". Collection of the
artist.

Iih Summei Wood Piece. 1974. Cloth, wood and staples, 30 x 20 x
1". Collection of the artist.

II.

1st Colored Triangle. 1974. Painted wood, 7 x H x 9". Collection of Lorenzo and Marilena Bonomo, Bari, Italy.

2ndCo/or,rl Triangle. 1974. Canned wood, 8 x 8 x 8". Collection of Lorenzo and Marilena Bronomo, Bari It

aly.

I'l

10th Rope Piece. 1974. Rope and nail, lA x 1". Collection of the artist.

Hth Houston Work. 1975. Wood and paper, lA x %". Collection of
the artist.

1st Cincinnati Piece. 1975. Painted wood. 5 x 14". Collection of the artist.

1st Wire Bridge. 1971. Wire and nails, approximate!) 10 x 10". Collection of the artisl

Left: 7th Paper Octagonal. 1970. Paper, approximately 54".
Collection of the artist. Right: 8th Paper Octagonal. 1970. Paper,
approximately 54". Collection of the artist.

th Wire Piece. 1972. Pencil, wire and nails, 23 x 26". Collection of the artist.

CEILING HEIGHTS

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Third installation view, left to right: 9th Plack. 1973. Homasote. 4 x 9".
Collection of the artist. 3rd Wood Slat. 1974. Plywood and paint. 36 x 5 x lA".
Collection of Jock Truman, New York. 9th Houston Work. 1975. Wood and
felt-tip marker, h x V. Collection of the artist. Yellow Dancer. 1965. Painted
plywood, 53 x 37". Collection of Judge and Mrs. Peter B. Spivak, Grosse
Pointe. Michigan.

Third installation view, left to right: First Green Octagonal. 1965. Dyed
cloth, approximately 54 x 22". Collection of Jock Truman, New York.
I 'ntitled. 1967. Dyed cloth, approximately 38". Collection of Mr. and Mrs.
Ronald K. Greenberg, St. Louis, Missouri. Grey Extended Seven. 1967. Dyed
cloth, 39 x 59". Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Gift of the
Simon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

'.7

Third installation view, left to right: •//// Paintingfoi the Wall. 1970. Acrylic,
I8x 18". Collection of the artist. 1st Rope Piece. 1974. Rope and nails, Vi x 6".
Collection of the artist. Ash Wednesday. 1965. Painted plywood, 21 x 40".
Collection of Norman P. Joondeph, New York. 9th Hind.. lc)7:5. Painted
wood; 4 x r) x 2", placed 4" from the wall. Collection of the artist. 7th Wood
Slat. 1974. Plywood and paint; 36 X 8", placed 1" from the floor. Collection of
Jock Truman, New York.

-,K

Third installation view of The Twenty-Six Series. 1967. Soldered metal, each
piece approximately 6-10". Collection ofjost Herbig. Abholfach, Germany.

//// Painting for the Wall. 1970. Acrylic, 18 x 18". Collection of the artist.

OPPOSITE LEFT

7th Wire Pint. 1972. Pencil, wire and nails, 'Mi \ 21". Collection of the artist.

OPI'OSIll I'll. Ml

I frd Win Piece. 1972. Pencil, wire and nails, 35 x 18". Collection of the artist.

9th Houston Work. 1975. Wood and felt-tip marker, % x lA".
Collection of the artist.

7th Wood Slat. 1974. Plywood and paint; 36x8", placed l'imm

the floor. Collection of Jock Truman, New York

6th Plack. 1973. Painted homasote, 6 x 8 x W
Collection of the artist.

9th Plack. 1973. Homasote, 4 x 9". Collection of the artist.

}

Hlh Block. 1973. Painted wood; 4 x 5 x 2", placed 4" from the
wall. Collection of the artist.

OPPOSITE LEFT

9th Block. 1973. Painted wood; 4 x 5 x 2", placed 4" from the
wall. Collection of the artist.

OPPOSITE RIGHT

10th Block. 1973. Painted wood; 4 x 7 x 2", placed 5" from the
wall. Collection of the artist.

5th Wire Octagonal. 1971. Wire and nails, approximately 54". Collection of the artist.

///// Papei Octagonal. 1970. Paper, approximately 54". Collection of A. Baldessari, Bari, Italy.

Chair. 1965. Ink, pencil and chalk. II x 10". Collection of Jost
Herbig, Abholfach, German)

Sirakus. 1974. Ink painted on paper, 14 x 11". Whitney Museum of Orange Plot. 1974. Ink and felt-tip pen on paper, 14 x 11". Whitney
American Art, New York; Albert A. List Fund. Museum of American Art, New York; Albert A. List Fund.

l.'l

Drawing for cloth piece. 1967. Watercolor on bond,133/4 x
Collection of Dorothy and Herbert Vogel, New York.

11". Broken line drawing. 1974. Pencil on air-mail writing
paper, 9 x 6". Collection of Dorothy and Herbert Vogel.
New York.

7(1

French Hotel Drawing I. 1973. Graphite on bond, 1 1 x
8'/2". Collection of the artist.

••"".• \V

Ntghl. 1972. White ink on black construction paper, 9 x 12'
Collection of Dorothy and Herbert Vogel, New York.

Rendering for 12th spiral drawing. 197:5. Black India ink on bond, 14
x 1 1". Collection of Dorothy and Herbert Vogel, New York,

I ntilled. 1973. Graphite on bond, 14 x 11". Collection of the artist.

Horizontal diamond with three kinds of lines. 1973. Felt-tip pen on
bond, 14 x 11". Collection of Dorothy and Herbert Vogel, New York.

Touch Slime. 1973. Graphite on bond. 11 x 8W. Collection of the

artist .

THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1975

Tuttle's Art
On Display
At Whitney

By HILTON KRAMER

To Mies van der Rone's
famous dictum that less is
more, the art of Richard Tut-
tle offers definitive refuta-
tion. For in Mr. Tuttle's work,
less is unmistakably less. It
is, indeed, remorselessly and
Irredeemably less. R estab-
lishes new standards of less-
tma, and fairly basks in the
void of lessness. One is tempt-
ed to say that, so far as art
is concerned, less has never
been as less as this.

The exhibition of Mr. Tut-
tle's work opening today at
the Whitney Museum of
American Art, Madison Ave-
nue at 75th Street, is billed as
• "major" show. How any-
thing so egregiously subordi-
nate to the most minor of
minor art could be miscon-
strued as "major" is a prob-
lem I am content to leave to
metaphysicians more gifted
than I am at fathoming the
ineffable. Suffice it to say that
the show, such as it is, oc-
cupies the entire second floor
of the museum.

But then, come to think of
K, it doesn't occupy the entire
second floor of the museum.
Its bits and pieces lie strewn
around the ample second-
floor galleries in a pathetic
attempt to master its vast
empty spaces. Many visitors
will leave this area of the
museum wondering when an
exhibition is going to be in-
stalled, and their wonder will
be well-founded.

A stick of wood rising
from the floor A bit of wire
fastened to a wall embel-
lished with a few penciled
lines. Some bits of string ar-
ranged on the rug. Some
dyed fabric tacked up to re-

semble a painting. Some so-
called "drawings" of a kind
that beginning design stu-
dents the world over are
content to consign to the
waste basket. That, alas, is
what this "major" show con-
sists of.

It is all a bore and a waste
— a bore for the museum
visitor, who has a right to
expect something a bit more
engaging for the money he
has just handed over at the
admissions desk, and a waste
for the museum itself, which
does not boast an excess of
exhibition space.

Mr. Tuttle, who was born
in 1941, has for some years
enjoyed an underground rep-
utation as a minimal artist.
Orr the basis of this exhibi-
tion, I think it would have
been wiser to leave that rep-
utation underground. There,
perhaps, the exceedingly
minimal pleasures of this
minimal oeuvre would con-
tinue to be savored* by the
minimal public that special-
izes in arid productions of
this sort. What is the point
of burdening a major muse-
um facility with such a mi-
nuscule accomplishment?

•

Marcia Tucker, the curator
at the Whitney responsible
for this debacle, offers little
help in answering this ques-
tion. For her, this show is an
occasion, as she says, "to
discover or explore some-
thing which is unknown in
order to find out for yourself
what it is about." She is still
working on the problem — ad-
mittedly, a difficult one in
this case — and promises to
produce a catalogue of her
discoveries after the show
closes. I can hardly wait.

Meanwhile, we are to be
treated to a series of modi-
fications in the installation.
The present arrangement will
be altered on Oct. 7, and al-
tered yet again on Nov. 4.
(How manv afficionados, I
wonder, will dutifully pay up
their three admission fees in
order to savor the full subtle-
ty of this farced The comedy
closes on Nov. 16.

THE SOHO WEEKLY NED

Creating the Eterna

Moment

MOIRA HODGSON

Richard Tuttle. the afternoon
after his show opened, was drinking
coffee in the Iront room of Art
Weave, a store specializing in rare
Asian rugs and wall hangings,
across the street from the Whitney
Museum. Himself a collector, he
w as trying to decide on an exquisite
early 19th century peasant Turkish
piece which was spread on the floor
next to us. Before long the
conversation turned to the artist's
dilemma today, and Tuttle's
controversial exhibition at the
Whitney.

Richard Tuttle: Most people
would think that I did a show like
this for my career. The fact is that I
did it for my work, that is all.

The art is a compensation for the
terrible thing it is to be an artist
today in America. No one
understands what you.are. One of
the main problems of American
society, which is very adolescent
comparedwith Japanese. French or
Italian cultures, is the lack of
recognition of the artist as artist.
The society sees the artist either as
someone who lives in the gutters of
wild bohemia or as a movie star . As
in everything else in America,
economics plays a major part. If a
person is rich, then he has status.
An artist who doesn't sell his work
has the status of a bum on the
Bowery. Ironically, because of this
state of things, American art is
stronger than any other in the world
at 'the moment.

Richard Tattle

Moira Hodgson In what way do
you feel this works?

RT: The more you are told a
can't be the way you are. the hard
you tight. The more you develi
your ability to think, to dream ai
to invent.

Knowing what art isissomethii
one is born with. It doesn't folk
any predictable lines. One tends
find this out early in life. In (J
society to find that out is rather
desperate thing. The artist has t
ability toshow other members of t
society what art is. If I want to km
whether a painting I see in
niuseumisanygood or not. I'll go
another artist.

But other people don't und«
stand what you are saying. It's lil
being a crazy man. No one w
listen. People who are put away
insane asylums often have a lot
say. But who cares? That's he
artists are treated in America.

MH Do you think Europea
treat their artists any better?

RT Because their cultures are
much older. I here are people
Europe and Japan who eg
recognize the artist for what he i
That's why so many Americ:
artists travel there. Not for th«
careers, but for their work. 1 w,
stunned, when I went to Japan. I
the way people simply recognizt
me as an artist by seeing it in tl
shape of my hands, or the way n
eyes look.

MH You are planning to chani
your show twice during the time it
on display at the Whitney. Can y<
explain how you will be doing th

RT What the show will be in t
next two phases has more to do wi
the on-going dialogue I ha
established with the curate
Marcia Tucker, than any project*
of a theory. She is evolving an ess
on the work and this will give h
direct experience. By our changi
works within groups or series sht
then be able to have contact ovei
two or three week period wi
different works.

Most museum shows tend to
cut and dried. The chance to
creative in this situation isveryrai

But Marcia and I are children
the sixties. With the sevent
turning out to be a period

-nel lowing, conservatism gaining
trength, and life generally getting
luller, more than every one should
lave the courage to put one's
jeliefs on the table. Art offers
iecurity for some people, adventure
brothers.

MH: Perhaps people are looking
or permanence in the arts because
he rest of their lives changes so
requently.

RT Life is 1 ife and art is art. They
ire not the same. Once I had an
rxhibition in Dallas and at the
■pening a member of the local press
nade quite a scene and tried to
present me as some strange buffoon
torn New York City. She went
iround introducing me to people
laying. "Oh, this is Richard Turtle,
te believes in impermance in the
irts." She made the mistake of
loing it to Betty Parsons who
mapped back. "What's more
permanent than the invisible?"

In art the creative moment is of
mch immeasurable quality and
quantity that the moment is a
virtual symbol for eternity. I don't
know whether I'm crazy or right or
that but in artistic terms I feel that
my work . if it lasts for one second or
all eternity, it's all the same to me.
In terms'of art. Of course, in terms
of life it would be nice if they stayed
:hreeweeksinsteadoftwoanda half
or whatever.

MH Wasthereapointinyourlife
*hereyourwork underwent a major
rhange?

RT If there was a change at all in
my work, it was in coming to the
rity. 1 needed to seek out artists who
■bid help me to be myself. When I
first came I told an artist whose
work I admire that I felt there was
something wrong with every artist's
work There was no such thing as
totally perfect art. His response
was. "Oh. we're going to have to be
careful of you!"

MH You arrived at a time when
there wasenormous opportunity for
young artists.

RT In the sixties the climate was
extremely conducive to the kind of
energyyoung people naturally have.
Youth was a natural source of
energy. Young people showed
promise. The older people had
perhaps made more substantial
contributions, but they didn't have
that quality of promise. In the same
way a few years ago women were
discovered to be a source of energy.
And recently many of the most vital
works have been done by women. So
whatever the contribution an
individual can make is dominated
by the climate of the times. Some
people might refute this and call it
fashion. But they are not sensitive to
the vital climate of life They are
dying inside.

CREATING

Con t. from 22

Forms of contemporary art are
like forms of nature. If there's a
strong wind the grass will bend right
down, If there's a lighter wind it will
stand up more. A danger is for
artists to 'think they are outside of
this give and take. To make a
contribution we hook up to a train,
travel on that train up to a certain
point, then it's time to get off and
somebodyelsepicksitup. Thetrain
is what is important.

MH: You point out how different
theclimateof the sixties is from the
seventies. How do you feel your
present show differs from your first
one at Parsons?

RT: I hope this show reveals
something about the moment. I'm a
little surprised. To me the show
looks as though it sprang full-blown
from the head of Zeus! There
doesn't seem to be any significant
difference between the old work and
the new. Yet it's been a very hard
road to travel— ten years. It might
be because those steps have to do
with life, and art is art. I look at life
all the time and I find it almost like a
jail. Art is freedom. Sol surely don't
expect to see life when I look at a
work of art.

Frost wrote a poem that I like very
much in which he likens human
beings to a child who's riding a great
big horse. We know that the child
can't possibly control the horse. At
theendofthepoemhesays, "But we
will always have a better idea."
Much of the search an artist is
involved in is in the search for a
better idea Nothing could please
me more than in a show like my
current one for a younger artist to
see beyond what I've done, and
beyond what I've been able to see.

Thursday, September 18, 1975

ON ART

Turtle's Subtle Output

JOHN PERREAULT

RICHARD TUTTLE (Whitney
Museum, through November 16):

The works in this line exhibit span
a ten year period. Richard Tuttle's
lirst show was in 1965. Since then
he has firmly established himself
outside official and therefore
artificial boundaries. When does
painting end and sculpture begin9
Or vice versa? The very terms
themselves seem not to apply. For
instance, his Cloth Octagonals
(c. 1968). the works I first noticed
and was impressed with, can be
wall pieces or floor pieces. They are
irregular octagonals of dyed and
hemmed, un-ironed cloth As
paintings they abolish the support;
they make color integral; they
make texture the results of a
non-painterly process. As sculp-
ture, they make cloth as a material
as valid as bronze or clay, operating
in a realm somewhere between low
relief and textured flatness Form,
shape, and outline are not
co-existent or inter-related but
identical The white paper
octagonals which followed assume
the standard white wall as the
setting for most art and. thereby,
since they are adhered directly to
the wall, melt into it. requiring the
viewer to perceive minute differen-
tiations, even beyond Malevich's
classical "White on White." You
compare, once the form is
perceived, the white of the paper
with the white of the wall. Because
you have to work to see it. the
minimal relief of the paper is
dramatic.

Another boundary that Tuttle
escapes is that of style. His works
share much with minimal art: the
single image, the understatement,
the reducttvity, the initial bland-
ness. On the other hand, his works
are too eccentric and personal to
qualify They are handmade They
have no direct reference to industry
or industrial methods of fabri-
cation. They are intuitive

Which works then shall I goon to
describe? Tuttle's subtle output
utilizes a range of materials But
once he hits his stride they are very
ordinary materials. It is the
sensitive sparseness of their
deployment that is the common
denominator Here sensibility is
more important than style. Actions
speak louder than words, and.
Tuttle's works are less verbal than

Pholos by Mart, Iv

From the Tuttl* ex

most. The action is delicate, but
surprisingly powerful. You look at
his works — even someof the almost
inane drawings — with a particular
mode of consciousness. How long
does it take, for instance, to
discover that the slat p'ieces each
have one edge painted white? What
does this do to the wall? Does it
emphasize the physicality of the
slat itself? Tuttle's works demand
attentiveness.

An earmark of genius is that
often the results of the genius look
unbelievably simple The unin-
formed, insensitive response is
often on the order of "a child could
li.ive done that." The answer is that
.i child might have done "that."
but he or she would not have known
enough to continue doing it after
seeing the results and operating
upon ludgments fully upon the
(esthetic plane On theother hand.
,i more mature response might he
Why didn't 1 think of doing
i hat?"

Tuttle's works are deceptively
simple. but they are noi
simple-minded. 1 admire his nerye
Me is able to control an enormous
expanse of space with the slightes'
amount of physicality

Several types of things in thi
xhibil are new lo me. and they fi
i some gaps in my understands
i I mile's development I an
particularly enamored of the flooi
: iece String thing Basically. Ti:i I
raws on the rug with string li

hibit at the Whitney

• Ned. "10 Kinds ol Mem, n \
Memory Itself " This is ,,n
unusually evocative title, for Tuttle
seems to prefer titles such as "35th
Wire Piece." "3rd Rope Piece," or
"9th Painting for the Wall."

No catalog for this exhibition yet
exists. Curator Marcia Tucker's
nunieo hand-out carefully explains
why The work needs to be seen in
installation. Agreed. The work
demands a sparseness of presenta-
tion normally not needed. Further-
more, two times during the
duration, works in particular series
will be changed. I admire Tucker
for her sensitivity to Tuttle's works.
A retrospective, particularly for a
young artist, can be deadening, but
thisexhibit maintains the openness
inherent in Tuttle's work.

A word too about the exhibition
map It substitutes for wall labels
very efficiently. Given Tuttle's need
for undifferentiated space above,
below, and all around his works, it
is not a gimmick, but 3 necessity.

This is an exquisite exhibit that I
am going to return to as soon as 1
can The reader might wonder how-
string, dyed cloth, paper, or slats
can be exquisite, but let us not
mistake rare or costly materials for
artistic worth. Tuttle's art is calm
and ordinary in an extraordinary

Art/Thomas B. Hess

PRIVATE ART

WHERE THE PUBLIC WORKS

". . . Tuttle tries to switch on the lamps, open blinds and doors,
and let the light flood in to show us that the room has vanished. . ."

Some Tuttle: Polymorphs of wood and canvas are among the enigmatic shapes arrayed about the Whitney's walls and floor.

It was a ravening (or was it a rave?)
review in the New York Times that
first attracted me to the coolly vacant
spaces and unpretentious objects in
the Richard Tuttle exhibition at the
Whitney Museum (through 11/16).
When you read such words as "remorse-
lessly and irredeemably . . . egregiously
. . . pathetic ... a bore and a waste . . .
arid . . . debacle . . . farce . . ." from a
critic who once called Jackson Pollock
"second-rate" and Willem de Kooning
a "pompier," then it's probable that
something importantly different has
come to notice. Such heavy breathing,
especially when couched in century-old
forms of righteous bombast, often indi-
cates that a strong presence has been
encountered.

Tuttle is a fanatical simplifier. He ex-
plores the logic of "impossible" reduc-
tions. There was a joke among Ab-
stract Expressionists that, in the Palace
of Art, "Barnett Newman closed the
doors, Mark Rothko pulled down the
shades. Ad Reinhardt turned out the
lights." Tuttle tries to switch on all
the lamps, open the blinds and doors,
and let the light flood in to show us —
with the fine magician's panache of a
natural artist — that the room itself has
vanished. There's no second floor to

the Whitney, there's no museum at 945
Madison, there's no Manhattan Island.
All that's left is nothing; nothing, noth-
ing at all. At first glance, that is. And
Tuttle's is eminently an art for those
happy few he calls "second glancers."
Consider, for example, his wire
pieces, done in 1972 and (like most of
the other exhibits) re-executed for the
occasion. At first you might think that
some circuitry from the museum's elec-
trical system had burst through the
plaster walls. You see nothing but
looping bits of wire, some shadows,
and, if you look a bit closer, a thin
line drawn in pencil. A more careful
look, however, discovers that each of
these pieces is a diary of its creation.
First Tuttle drew the line on the wall.
Then a length of wire was applied on
top of the line, tracing it as exactly as
possible. Then a few nails were driven
into the track and the wire fixed to
them. Finally the wire was cut free
from its coil — released from the line.
Three things remain for the viewer to
contemplate: there is the pencil line;
there is the memory the wire holds of
having been coiled; and there is the
force of gravity which holds the wire
off the wall like a keen tendril. And, of
course, there is the vulnerability of the

piece — bumps and squeezes from pre-
occupied second glancers or heated art
critics can change the contours dras-
tically.

Tuttle mildly objects to the usual
labels of "Conceptual" or "Process
Art" for such works because, even
though they testify to the artist's pro-
cedures, chance — luck, hazard — has a
major role in the final shaping. Tuttle
can't predict how the wire will finally
snap into the air, nor where its shad-
ows will fall. The sinuous shadows
cast by museum spotlights are darker
than the wire; they echo and subvert
the more awkward pencil line in a
learned game of reality and illusion.

The finished pieces are complex im-
ages, dependent on strict plans that
Tuttle elaborates in calculated risks.
The unifying metaphor concerns mem-
ory. The pencil line remembers the
wire. The wire remembers its coil.
Shadows remember the wire even as
they contradict the materiality of the
line. There is a layering of recollec-
tions, one on top of the other. Some
of them are verifiable — they can be
measured or photographed. Others are
subjective and depend on where you
stand, how you feel, what you remem-
ber about art. It's a visual structure

that would delight a modern-dress
Proust: Marcel also had a passion for
objects buttered with remembrances.

Tuttle's Twenty-Six Series is an in-
ventive metal alphabet strewn across
a wall. He firmly articulated the "T"
and "U" and "L" shapes — evidently
another artist who. like Mir<5 and Mon-
drian. enjoys spelling out his name.
And there are the plywood Slats (ex-
hibited last year in his sixth one-man
show at the Betty Parsons Gallery).
Here again, at first glance, you sec
"nothing" — some pieces of wood cut
on an angle at the top, attached to the
wall, pointing at the veiling like split
arrows. When closer attention is paid,
you note that certain edges are painted,
others are left raw; angles are varied,
as are placements, heights, widths.
Every element is subject to camouflage.
The "slats" seem to change shape, flick-
er, as you study them and compare
one with the other. Suddenly you have
the sense that somewhere there is a
hermetic message, something is being
hidden — there is a secret. And this,
perhaps, explains the wrath of the
Times's critic. Nothing is so infuriating
to certain people than the feeling of
being held outside, of being considered
out-of-touch. provincial, or irrelevant.

Tuttle's modest, vulnerable pieces
are concerned with delicacies, with

elisions and refinements of adjustment.
Some pale-fire canvas octagons, pasted
to the wall, like many other of Tuttle's
pieces, elude a catalog mentality. Are
they drawings (all that counts is the
linear edges)? Or are they paintings
(they are. indeed, palpably painted)?
Are they low-relief sculptures? Or mul-
tiples? Tuttle's works are apt to con-
flate all such formalities. They glide
from one category to another, in a
moment, when your back is turned, so
to speak, in chameleon tricks that are
essential to Tuttle's subject matter

The vitality and energy in his pieces
are extraordinary, especially as each is
so drastically simplified. The artist is
after essences; not streamlined Platonic
ones, such as Brancusi's Bird, but in-
formal, folded, asymmetrical, lumpy,
hairy little entelechies He celebrates
simplicity and pared-down refinements
which can be compared to a mathe-
matician's concept of "elegance." And.
like a scientist. Tuttle keeps himself
out of the transaction between his art
and the viewer. The idea of an artist
and of his creative procedures arc
what the audience has to imagine for
itself It takes patience, care, an open
and inquiring mind. In this private
art. the public works.

7(i

OCTOBER 13 1975/NEW YORK

ART / Lawrence Alio way

The Richard Turtle exhibition at the
Whitney Museum (until November 16) calls
to mind the best exhibition that James
Monte and Marcia Tucker ever presented
there— "Anti-IUusion: Procedures-Materi-
als" (1969). In that earlier show, instead of
pre-existing works of art being assembled
for the show, the artists worked in situ. In
the case of the Turtle show, arranged by
Marcia Tucker, many of the works were
already in existence, but the artist's pres-
ence was necessary to install them. That
was not because they are complicated but
because they function as accents within ex-
isting spaces and only the artist can deter-
mine their location. The catalogue of
"Anti-Illusion" obviously could not include
works that did not exist at press time, but it
presented a rationale for the then new work
procedures that were the subject of the
exhibition. As yet, there is no catalogue for
the Turtle show; it is being written now by
the curator, who felt she had to see what
Turtle made of the second floor of the
museum before writing.

We are faced then with an art in singular
correspondence with its environment. It is
an interesting and legitimate way to work;
the sculpture of Cecile Abish, for instance,
consists of sets of separate elements which
exist as art only when assembled by the
artist. The rest of the time they are a heap
of hardware. As she says, "the surfaces
upon which I work do not belong to me.
The surfaces are the property of institu-
tions, galleries and individuals. When fin-
ished, the sculpture I build cannot be sep-
arated from the surface." One of her large
floor pieces, recently at the Michael Walls
Gallery, demonstrated that the practice of
art as a form of temporary possession of
space has no inherent limitations. Abish
points ouf that the zone occupied by her
sculpture had another name before her
occupancy: "it is called the floor or the
ground."

If a museum is sufficiently interested in
an artist to decide to give him a large exhi-
bition it must be on the basis of a
knowledge of his past work. And if that is
the case the knowledge of the earlier occa-
sions of Turtle's art should provide suffi-
cient material for an account of his method
of work and a record of what he has done
up to now. Of course, the curator's experi-
ence will always be enlarged by contem-
plating the show she or he has arranged,
but then you write an article sharing the
gained insights. To withhold the catalogue
from the exhibition's visitors is an abroga-
tion of the museum's educational responsi-
bilities. Is it really so difficult to state what
Turtle is doing? Lacking a catalogue, the
Whitney offers a 3-page duplicated hand-
out in which Tucker says that Turtle's work
"is 'felt' rather than 'understood' " — which
is, to say the least, an old-hat argument. I
find it hard to believe that Turtle sets aes-

thetic problems greater, subtler, or more
elusive than those raised by other artists.

Let us assume that Turtle is no more
inexplicable than many other artists and
note that in the mid-1960s he made
one-color wooden reliefs Influenced by Ells-
worth Kelly's paintings. "Yellow Dancer"
(1965), for instance, a skewed horseshoe
form, is clearly from Kelly but with a
roughly crafted look. Other pieces of this
period are "Shadow" and "Ash Wednes-
day." The unassuming workmanship is not
there to hide the debt to Kelly's im-
maculate handling; it is simply characteris-
tic of all his work. He projects a kind of
candor by avoiding high finish or complex
forms. The other influence is Agnes
Martin, who is certainly the model for his
assumption that humble objects can gen-
erate rapturous thought. Martin's mysti-
cism appears in Turtle's art as a hazy bond
between aestheticism and contemplation.

It appears to have been in 1967 that he
began his cloth pieces, but in the absence
of a catalogue I am not sure. These are
pieces of cloth, dyed one color, deeply
creased, and pinned to the wall. These are
to my eye his best pieces: tactful in color
and agreeably varied in contour because
the angles and 'sides of the figures are
tousled. The casual touch of the reliefs
hardens here into something a little
rougher: the octagon resembles a skin, even
if it is that of chamois. Now if I am right
and these are his best works, >hat do they
reveal about the artist? They show some-
body with a gift for making sensuous
objects, someone with an eye for the anima-
tion caused by irregularities of form, and a
sense of pretty color. In short, Turtle is an
artist of good taste and though that is con-
ventionally said to be hard to verbalize, it is
not what Tucker has in mind.

The engaging humbleness of the cloth
octagons turned into an art of low visibility
and high environmental pretension. As
Turtle's work shrank, its scope was ex-
pected to expand. In the present show,
there are paper octagons of 1969, similar in
color to but different in texture from the
walls they are pasted on. There are wire
pieces from 1972, in which a real wire,
bent, is stuck into the wall and a pencil line
drawn from the points of attachment.
These, combined with the shadows cast by
the wire, create a crabbed little neat of two-
and three-dimensional lines. And there are
wood pieces of last year: in each of these a
thin slat projects a short distance up the
wall. All these little works occupy large
empty spaces. It is clear that these piquant
accents are intended to resonate, to take
possession of what, to adapt Abish's terms,
had been walls. But Turtle overestimates
the efficacy of the small and his pieces stay
tiny and the surrounding walls inert. A
common experience at the Whitney is to

look at the objects and the spaces they are
supposed to enliven and to note how pooriy
the white walls are being maintained. One
sees the Whitney's pimples rather than the
pure flame of Turtle The spaces he enters
are not transformed. Turtle's development,
then, has taken him away from his feeling
for chunky but tactful objects bearing signs
of a craft that connoted naivete and toward
infiltration of the environment. However
his main way of doing this is by placement,
by, that is to say, the distribution of accents
and emphases in existing spaces. It is like
flower arrangement.

The artist will make two installation
changes during the run of the exhibition—
on October 7 and November 4. That is
another reason Tucker gives for writing the
catalogue after the show rather than for the
show's visitors. It occurs to me that there is
a possible tactical advantage here, inas-
much as the post-show catalogue enables a
curator to answer criticism. At least, one
hopes so. D

THE NATlOH/October //, 797/

Permission to reprint David Bourdon's article was not granted.
Accordingly we have included a summary of his review.

David Bourdon, in his "Playing Hide and Seek in
the Whitney" (The Village Voice, September 29, 1975),
described Tuttle's work as "ultra-Minimalist"— so
unassuming in appearance that it "almost asks to be
damned with faint praise," the retrospective as "un-
derwhelming," and the presentation as "overblown."
He characterized Tuttle's art as having a "gentle,
though fey quality," as "situational," and as a "per-
verse type of interior decoration." The art appears
"niggardly, if not always precious," he wrote, and the
scale of the work so small that following the floor plan
to find the pieces was like going on a treasure hunt
where the discoveries are "merely geographic, instead
of aesthetic."

In the last two paragraphs of the review, Bourdon
spoke of Marcia Tucker's "unprofessional behavior"
in "abdicat(ing her] critical responsibilities" and sug-
gested that her failing to "familarize herself with an
artist's work before mounting a show" was her reason
for postponing publication of the catalogue until after
the exhibition. He closed with the thought that if
Tucker's Tuttle catalogue is like the others she has put
out, it "probably will be as 'elusive' and 'ephemeral' as
anything in Tuttle's art."

Chronology

Compiled by Katherine Sokolnikoff

1941

Born July 12. in Railway, New Jersey

1946-59

Attended public schools in Roselle, New Jersey

1959-63

Attended Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut

(editor of Ivy, Trinity yearbook; designed and painted

sets for theater production; received B.A. in Fine Arts)

1962

Attended evening courses at Pratt School of Design,

Brooklyn

1963

Moved to New York City

1963-64

Attended Cooper Union, New York

1964

Worked for Agnes Martin

1965

First one-artist exhibition at Betty Parsons Gallery,
New York

Grant from C. Douglas Dillon Foundation, New York,
which made possible a trip to Paris to attend the Cite
Internationale des Arts
1966

Worked for Tony Smith during the first showing of
Smith's sculpture at the Wadsworth Atheneum,
Hartford, Connecticut, and the Institute of Contem-
porary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
1966-68
Worked installing shows at Asia House, New York

1968

Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts,

Washington, D.C.

Traveled to Japan for six months

1969

First one-artist European exhibition, Galerie Schme-

la, Diisseldorf, Germany

1970

Traveled to Turkey with Betty Parsons and Mr. and

Mrs. Gordon Washburn

Began collecting Islamic carpets

1971

First became familiar with the work of Rosanji

Kitaoji, a contemporary potter

1972

Traveled to Japan and the South Seas

1974

Traveled to Greece

Participated in program at Artpark, Lewiston, New

York

1975

Traveled to Japan

Selected One-Artist Exhibitions

1965

"First One-Man Show Richard Tuttle: Constructed

Painting," Betty Parsons Gallery, New York

1967

Betty Parsons Gallery, New York

1968

Galerie Schmela, Diisseldorf, Germany

Betty Parsons Gallery, New York

1969

Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Los Angeles

1970

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Betty Parsons Gallery, New York

Galerie Zwirner, Cologne, Germany

1971

"Richard Tuttle," Dallas Museum of Fine Arts,

Dallas, Texas

The Helman Gallery, St. Louis, Missouri

1972

Galerie Zwirner, Cologne, Germany

Betty Parsons Gallery, New York

Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

1973

"Richard Tuttle: Das 11. Papierachteck und Wand-

malereien," Kunstraum, Munich

Galerie Heiner Friedrich, Munich

Galleria Franchise Lambert, Milan

Daniel Weinberg Gallery, San Francisco

The Clocktower, New York

1974

Galleria Toselli, Milan

Betty Parsons Gallery, New York

Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris

Galleria Marilena Bonomo, Bari, Italy

Barbara Cusack Gallery, Houston, Texas

Nigel Greenwood Gallery, London

1975

Parsons-Truman Gallery, New York

DAlessandro-Fcrranti, Rome

"Paper Strips," Barbara Cusack Gallery, Houston,

Texas

"Matrix 10," Matrix Gallery, Wadsworth Atheneum,

Hartford, Connecticut

Selected Group Exhibitions

1965

"A New York Collector Selects, Mrs. B. Tremaine,"
San Francisco Museum of Art
"The Box Show," Byron Gallery, New York
"Contemporary American Painting," Lehigh Univer-
sity, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
1965-67

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond (exhibition
traveled)
1965-69

"Drawings from the Collection of Betty Parsons"
(exhibition traveled)
1966

12th Annual Contemporary Painting Exhibition, Le-
high University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Penthouse Gallery, The Museum of Modern Art. New
York

2e Salon International de Galeries-pilotes, Musee
Cantonal des Beaux Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland
1968

"Preview 1968," Trinity College, Hartford, Connecti-
cut

State University College, Potsdam, New York
"American Abstract Artists," 32nd Anniversary Ex-
hibition, Riverside Art Center and Museum, River-
side, California
Bykert Gallery, New York

"Painting Out From the Wall," Des Moines Art
Center, Des Moines, Iowa

Art Form," John Gibson Gallery, New York
"Betty Parsons' Private Collection," Finch College
Museum of Art, New York
1968-69

"Some Younger American Painters and Sculptors,"
American Federation of Arts Traveling Exhibition
1969

Oilier Ideas. " The I )elruil Insl ll ule nl \ns Detroit,

Michigan

"Art on Paper," The VVeatherspoon Annual Exhibi-
tion, University of North Carolina. Greensboro
"Here and Now," Washington University Caller \ ol
Art, St. Louis, Missouri

"Young Artists from the Collection of Charles
Cowles," The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art,
Ridgefield, Connecticut

"Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form"
(Nine Works, Processes, Concepts, Situations, Infor-
mation), Kunsthalle, Bern, Switzerland
"Anti-Illusion: Procedures/Materials," Whitney Mu-
seum of American Art, New York
31st Biennial, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington,
DC.

"American Painting: the 1960s," The American Fed-
eration of Arts Gallery, New York
"Soft Art," New Jersey State Museum, Trenton
1970

"New Materials," Trinity College, Hartford, Connec-
ticut

"Paper Works," Junior Council of the Museum of
Modern Art, New York

"Using Walls (Indoors)," The Jewish Museum, New
York

1971

"Paintings Without Supports," Bennington College,

Bennington, Vermont

Bykert Gallery, New York

"Small Series," Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

1972

"Actualite d'un Bilan," Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris
Documenta 5, Kassel, Germany

1973

"New American Graphic Art," Fogg Art Museum,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Barbara Cusack Gallery, Houston, Texas
"Hand-Colored Prints," Brooke Alexander, Inc., New
York

"Bilder-Objekte-Filme-Konzepte," Collection of Jost
Herbig, Stadtische Galerie, Lenbachhaus, Munich
"Works of Paper," The Newark Museum, Newark,
New Jersey

"Options and Alternatives: Some Directions in Re-
cent Art," Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven,
Connecticut

"American Drawings, 1963-1973," Whitney Museum
of American Art, New York

"Arte Come Arte," Centro Communitario di Breta,
Milan

"Young American Artists, Drawings and Graphics"
(exhibition traveled to Switzerland, Norway, Sweden,
Denmark and Germany; organized by Steingrim
Laursen for Gentofte Kunstvenner of Gentofte Kom-
mune)
"Art in Evolution," Xerox Square Exhibits, New York

1974

"Contemporanea," Incontri Internazionali d'arte,

Rome

Cirrus, Los Angeles

""Drawings on Paper." The Museum of Modern Art.
New York

"Painting and Sculpture Today 1974.'" Contem-
porary Art Center of the Indianapolis \iuseum of Art.
Indianapolis. Indiana, and Contemporary An Center
and the Taft Museum. Cincinnati. Ohio
"The Bay Area Collects: Sandra and Breck Caldwell."
University Art Museum. Berkeley. California
'"Line as Language. Six Artists Draw." The Art
Museum. Princeton University. Princeton. New Jer-
sey
"Recent Prints." Brooke Alexander. Inc.. New York

1975

Galleria Marilena Bonomo. Ban. Italy
""Small Scale." The Art Institute of Chicago
""Recent Drawings." American Federation of Arts.
New York

"Zeichnungen 3." Stadtisches Museum Leverkusen,
Schloss Morsbroich. Leverkusen. Germany
"'Richard Brown Baker Collects!" Yale University Art
Gallery. New Haven. Connecticut
"Mel Bochner. Barry Le \*a. Dorothea Rockburne,
Richard Tuttle." Contemporary Arts Center. Cincin-
nati. Ohio

"Selections from the Collection of Dorothy and Her-
bert Yogel." The Clocktower. New York
""Art on Paper." The Weatherspoon Annual Exhibi-
tion. University of North Carolina. Greensboro
"Painting. Drawing and Sculpture of the '60s and the
'70s from the Dorothy and Herbert Yogel Collection."
Institute of Contemporary Art. University of Penn-
sylvania. Philadelphia

"14 Artists." Baltimore Museum of Art. Baltimore.
Maryland

Selected Bibliography

by Libby W. Seaberg

References are arranged alphabetically by author, if

known, or by title, with exhibition catalogues listed

either under the corporate body that prepared the

catalogue or the city in which the corporate body is

located.

STATEMENTS BY THE ARTIST

I rxLEj Richard. Statement in "Artists on Their
Art." Art International, vol. 12, May 15, 1968, p. 48.

Statement in Kurtz. Bruce ""Documenta 5: A

Critical Preview," \ri Hagazim vol. 46. Summer
1972, p. 39.

Statement in Rose. Barbara. "ABC Art. Art

in America, vol. 53, October/ November 1965, p. 60.

"'Work Is Justification for the Excuse." in

Documenta 5. Befragung der Realitdt Bilduelten heute,
vol. 1, p. 17.77 [full entry is given under "Books and
Exhibition Catalogues"].

BOOKS AND EXHIBITION CATALOGUES

The American Federation of Arts. American Painting:
the 1960's (text by Samuel Adams Green). New
York. 1969.

Bern. Kunsthalle. Lite in Your Head: When Attitudes
Become Form (introduction and catalogue's direction
by Harald Szeemann; text by Scott Burton,
Gregoire Muller and Tommaso Trini; variant edi-
tion of catalogue produced for exhibition at The
Institute of Contemporary Arts. London, also con-
tains essay by Charles Harrison). Bern, [1969].

Betty Parsons Gallery. "First One-Man Show
Richard Tuttle: Constructed Paintings (statement
by Gordon B. Washburn)." New York. 1965. Exhi-
bition announcement.

Cincinnati. The Contemporary Arts Center. Mel
Bochner, Barry Le Va, Dorothea Rockburne, Richard
Tuttle (introduction by Ragland Watkins: essay on
Tuttle by Dorothy Alexander). Cincinnati, 1975.

Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. Richard Tuttle (essay bv
Rfobert] M. M[urdock]). [Dallas], 1971.

The Detroit Institute of Arts. Other Ideas (intro-
duction by Samuel J. VVagstaff, Jr.). Detroit, 1969.

Documenta 5. Befragung der Realitdt Bildwelten heute, 2
vols. Kassel. Ger.: Yerlag documenta Gmb H, 1972.

Finch College Museum of Art. Betty Parsons' Private
Collection (acknowledgment by Elayne H. Yarian;
text by Eugene Goossen). New York, 1968.

Hunter, Sam and John Jacobus. American Art of the
20th Century: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture. New
York: Harry N. Abrams. n.d.

The Jewish Theological Seminary of America,
The Jewish Museum. Using Walls (Indoors) (in-
troduction bv Susan Tumarkin Goodman). New
York, 1970.

Mi nich, Kunstraum. Richard Tuttle: Das 11. Pa-
pierachteck und Wandmalereien [Richard Tuttle: The 1 1th
Paper Octagonal and Paintings for the Wall) (essay by
Hermann Kern, revised and authorized by the
artist). Munich, 1973. Catalogue in German and
English.

Xi w Jersey State Mi si I M Sqfl Art (introduction by-
Ralph Pomeroy). Trenton, 1969.

Pi snsylvama, University of; Institute of Con i i m-
porary Art. Painting, Drawing and Sculpture of the '60s
and the '70s from the Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection

K(i

(foreword by Suzanne Delehanty). Philadelphia,
1975.

Whitney Museum of American Art. Anti-Illusion:
Procedures /Materials (essays by James Monte and
Marcia Tucker). New York, 1969.

Yale University Art Gallery. Options and Alterna-
tives: Some Directions in Recent Art (preface by Alan
Shestack; essays by Anne Coffin Hanson, Klauss
Kertess and Annette Michelson; segment on Tuttle
by Priscilla Whiteman). [New Haven, Conn., 1973].

newspapers and periodicals

Alloway, Lawrence. "Art," The Nation, vol. 221,
October 11, 1975, p. 350.

Ammann, Jean-Christophe. Pp. 47-50 in "Schweizer
Brief: 'Live in Your Head— When Attitudes Be-
come Form,'" Art International, vol. 13, May 20,
1969.

Anderson, Laurie. Pp. 113-14 in "Reviews and
Previews," Art News, vol. 73, Summer 1974.

"Art in New York: Galleries: Richard Tuttle," Time
[New York edition], vol. 86, September 24, 1965, p.
NY9.

"Art: The Avant-Garde: Subtle, Cerebral, Elusive,"
Time, vol. 92, November 22, 1968, pp. 70-77.

"Art Tour: The Galleries— A Critical Guide, New York
Herald Tribune, September 1 1, 1965, p. 9.

Battcock, Gregory. "More or Less? The People
Speak," The Soho Weekly News, vol. 3, October 23,
1975, p. 23; article continues in "High Art at
Braniff," The Soho Weekly News, vol. 3, November 6,
1975, p. 22.

Baur. John I. H. P. 4 in "Letters: Bourdoned," The

Village Voice, vol. 22, October 13, 1975.
Borden, Lizzie. P. 84 in Reviews," Artforum, vol. 10,

May 1972.
P. 88 in "Reviews," Artforum, vol. 1 1, October

1972.
Bourdon, David. "Playing Hide and Seek in the

Whitney," The Village Voice, vol. 20, September 29,

1975, pp. 97-98.
B[urton], S[cott]. P. 56 in "Reviews and Previews."

Art News, vol. 66, January 1968.
"Time on Their Hands," Art News, vol. 68,

Summer 1969, pp. 40-43.
C[ampbei.l], L[awrence]. P. 11 in "Reviews and

Previews," Art News, vol. 64, September 1965.
P. 56 in "Reviews and Previews," Art News,

vol. 71, March 1972.
Canaday, John. "The Quiet Anger of Jacob

Lawrence," The New York Times, January 6, 1968, p.
25.

Catoir, Barbara. Pp. 42-43 in "Ausstellungen:
Richard Tuttle 'Drahtstucke' 1971-1972," Das
Kunstwerk, vol. 25, September 1972.

Celant, Germano. "La 'Pittura Fredda' Americana,"
Domus, June 1973, pp. 49-51. English translation
"American 'Cool' Painting (Henry Martin,
trans.)," unpaged supplement between pp. 48 and
49.

Crimp, Douglas. P. 100 in "Reviews and Previews,"
Art News, vol. 72, Summer 1973.

Foote, Nancy. Pp. 102-3 in "Review of Exhibitions,"
Art in America, vol. 62, May /June 1974.

Frank, Peter. "The National Scene: Boston: Recog-
nition for Local Artists," Art News, vol. 72, De-
cember 1973, p. 73.

P. 114 in "Reviews and Previews," Art News,

vol. 73, Summer 1974.

Garver, Thomas H. "Los Angeles," Artforum, vol. 8,
September 1969, pp. 66-67.

Gilbert-Rolfe, Jeremy. Pp. 67-68 in "Reviews,"
Artforum, vol. 12, June 1974.

Glueck, Grace. "Remember Tom Mix? Roy Merkin
Does," The New York Times, February 25, 1965, p. 23.

Gold, Barbara. "Corcoran Biennial: New Sensibility
in Washington," Arts Magazine, vol. 43, April 1969,
pp. 28-31.

Heinemann, Susan. Pp. 75-76 in "Reviews," Artforum,
vol. 12, June 1974.

Hess, Thomas B. "Art: Private Art Where the Public
Works," New York, vol. 8, October 13, 1975, pp.
83-84.

H[oene], A[nne], Pp. 65-66 in "In the Galleries," Arts
Magazine, vol. 40, November 1965.

Josephson, Mary. "New York Reviews: Richard
Tuttle at Betty Parsons," Art in America, vol. 60,
May/June 1972, pp. 31, 33.

Karp, Ivan. "Here and Now," Arts Magazine, vol. 43,
March 1969, p. 49.

Kelder, Diane. "Prints: Artists' Alterations," Art in
America, vol. 62, March/April 1974, pp. 96-97.

Kerber, Bernhard . P. 73 in "Documenta und Szene
Rhein-Ruhr," Art International, vol. 16, October
1972, pp. 68-77.

Kramer, Hilton. "Tuttle's Art on Display at Whit-
ney," The New York Times, September 12, 1975, p.
21.

Krauss, Rosalind. "Sense and Sensibility: Reflection

on Post '60s Sculpture," Art forum, vol. 12, November
1973, pp. 43-53.

L[ast], M[artin]. Pp. 75-76 in "Reviews and Pre-
views," Art News, vol. 69, April 1970.

Lubell, Ellen. "Wire/Pencil/Shadow: Elements of
Richard Tuttle," Arts Magazine, vol. 47, November
1972, pp. 50-52.

Mayer, Rosemary. Pp. 61-62 in "New York Galler-
ies," Arts Magazine, vol. 48, November 1973.

Mellow, James R. "Edgar Negret: Sculpture for the
Space Age," The New York Times, February 13, 1972,
section 2, p. 23.

P. 61 in "New York," Art International, vol. 1 1,

April 20, 1967, pp. 56-62.

Morschel, Jurgem. Pp. 75-76 in "Ausstellungen:
Richard Tuttle," Das Kunstwerk, vol. 26, September
1973.

M[urdock], R[obert]. "Richard Tuttle," Art Interna-
tional, vol. 15, May 20, 1971, p. 59.

North, Charles. "Richard Tuttle: Small Pleasures,"
Art in America, vol. 63, November/December 1975,
pp. 68-69.

Perreault, John. "Art: A Healthy Pluralism," The

Village Voice, vol. 17, February 17, 1972, pp. 21-22.

_ Pp. 16-17 in "Art: Simple, Not Simple-

Minded," The Village Voice, vol. 13, January 18,

1968.

Pincus-Witten, Robert. "The Art of Richard Tut-
tle," Artforum, vol. 8, February 1970, cover and pp.
62-67.

Pomeroy, Ralph. "New York: Soft Art," Art and
Artists (Charles Spencer, ed.), vol. 4, April 1969, pp.
26-27.

Preston, Stuart. "Salute to a Pioneer Abstraction-
ist," The New York Times, September 12, 1965,
section 2, Part 1, p. X27.

Ratcliff, Carter. P. 76 in "New York Letter," Art
International, vol. 14, May 20, 1970.

Pp. 65-66 in "New York Letter," Art Interna-
tional: The Art Spectrum, vol. 19, November 20, 1975.

Rose, Barbara. "ABC Art," Art in America, vol. 53,
October/November 1965, pp. 57-69.

Schwartz, Barbara . P. 8 in "Exhibitions: New
York," Craft Horizons, vol. 34, August 1974.

Smith, Alvin. P. 59 in "New York Letter," Art
International, vol. 16, April 20, 1972.

Smith, Roberta. Pp. 60-61 in "Reviews: New York,"
Artforum, vol. 14, January 1976.

T[abachnick], A[nne]. Pp. 9-10 in "Reviews and
Previews," Art News, vol. 66, April 1967.

Tomkins, Calvin. Pp. 54, 59 in "Profiles: A Keeper of
the Treasure," The New Yorker, vol. 51, June 9, 1975.

Tuchman, Phyllis. "American Art in Germany: The
History of a Phenomenon," Artforum, vol. 9, No-
vember 1970, pp.58-69.

Wasserman, Emily. P. 5 in "Capsuling the Critics,"
Art Digest Newsletter vol. 3, April 1, 1968 |reprinted
excerpt from following reference].

Pp. 56-58 in "New York," Artforum, vol. 6,

March 1968.

The artist installing the 4th Summer Wood Piece (1974) for the second installation.

Notes on the Exhibition

The installation of the exhibition, in three distinct
parts, was a collaborative effort. After the opening
installation, for which several days were allotted, each
change was done overnight, with Tuttle dismantling
the works, changing the location of certain key pieces
which were borrowed from collectors and reexecuting
others. The touch-up work on the walls was done early
in the morning, before the exhibition opened to the
public.

Thirty wooden frames, painted the color of the
walls in one room of the Gertrude Vanderbilt Whit-
ney Galleries on the second floor of the Museum, wen-
designed by Tuttle. with a removable section so that a
drawing could be slipped out and a new one substi-
tuted. The drawings for each installation were select-
ed by me, and the spacing between each of the frames
was equal, so that the groupings could be altered by

removing one frame to make a separation and adding
it to another group instead.

The installation decisions were made by Tuttle
and me, working together, trying things out, discuss-
ing them, making alterations and changes until each
piece related to every other piece that could be seen
from each possible vantage point. We found that each
installation had a different character and a different
meaning. We agreed that the first installation was
about focus, that the second was visually "noisier"
and more aggressive; an acute observer commented
that the first was a whisper, the second a roar. The
third installation had the most extreme variety in the
positioning of the pieces— the small Blocks located on
the floor. The Twenty-Six Series repositioned from the
wall to the carpeted floor of the rear gallerv. Yellow
Dancer installed adjacent to the minute 9th Houston
Work— and caused major readjustments of one's direc-
tional vision and shifts in one's sense of gravity. This
final installation, it seemed, was about balance. Tut-
tle felt that, ultimately, the exhibition dealt with
contradictions and gave him an opportunity to expe-
rience the work in a new way.

There were certain technical difficulties we en-
countered, which, when solutions were found, seemed
not to have been difficulties at all. It became clear, for
instance, that the presence of wall labels would
compete with and often destroy the presence of the
work. A solution w:as found in using the Whitney's
floor plan, (on which the curators indicate the config-
uration of the moveable partitions for each exhibi-
tion) as a kind of portable label. Tuttle handwrote the
information for each piece in its proper location on the
floor plan just after the installation was completed,
and it was rushed to the printer early the next
morning.

To my surprise, the lighting, which I had as-
sumed—especially in the case of the wire/graphite/
shadow pieces— would be difficult to do properly,
presented no problem at all. Tuttle preferred that the
walls be evenly washed with light before he began to
install the work, and that the lighting remain constant
throughout the show, with no changes at all.

The obligation of explaining to the public the
nature of the exhibition and the reasons for producing
the catalogue afterward were fulfilled, in part, by a
mimeographed handout, which is reproduced on
pages 20-22.

The opportunity to work closely with Tuttle al-
lowed an understanding of the physical nature of his
work and of the importance of the making of the work
to the final result. It also gave me insight into aspects
of Tuttle's thought, attitudes and method which,
because they are private and because he generally

The artist installing the 12th Paper Octagonal (1970)
for the first installation.

prefers to work in solitude, added immeasurably to
my understanding and appreciation of the work.

Tuttle himself had an unusual attitude toward the
exhibition. He felt that "the work is the show. It
doesn't matter what happens," he remarked,
"whether it's popular, unpopular, successful, unsuc-
cessful. The show acts, in many ways, like points of
concentration, in the very abstract sense."

The response to the exhibition is partly document-
ed here in the journalistic articles that are reproduced.
We have chosen to include only documents that
appeared as a direct response to the show, rather than
longer, critical pieces appearing subsequently in art
magazines. I have not included the many letters,
supportive as well as irate, that we received at the
Museum as a result of the controversy the exhibition
caused. That it was controversial is, in itself, a positive
aspect of the exhibition, because it created an atmos-
phere of dialogue as well as argument.

Marcia Tucker and Richard Tuttle installing one of
the 1973 Block pieces (third installation).

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It was a coincidence that I met Marcia Tucker on my own street corner in \ enice. California, while she
was working on the Richard Tuttle exhibition. Not an unpredictable occurrence for that area certainly,
but one that I consider very fortuitous.

We discussed the difficulties of circulating Tuttle's exhibiton to another museum as it is
traditionally done, with each work numbered in a catalogue and sent off in a slotted crate. Much of
Tuttle's recent work was created as part of an installation. The artist cannot conjure up these works
again in numerical sequence but must recreate them with as much sensitivity to their surroundings as
when initially done. Ms. Tucker proposed that if Tuttle showed at the Otis Galley it would serve as an
extension of the process of installation started at the Whitney Museum. Away from New York and a
museum context, Tuttle could select very sparingly from his assembled oeuvre and combine pieces with
work created on the gallery walls.

Tuttle arrived here on a Sunday evening and within two hours had put up three pieces. The
next day he did three more and selected two of the existing works sent from the Whitney; the selection
and placement of the exhibition was entirely Tuttle's. He returned to Los Angeles three weeks later for
the installation of Part II. He left instructions for changing the selection of drawings on the entrance wall
twice a week, throughout the exhibition.

I had not met Richard Tuttle before he came here and I really must thank him for his trust in
me, and thank Ms. Tucker for bringing him to us. Members of the Art Committee of the Otis An
Associates gave generously of their own funds to have Tuttle come here, as well as approving support
from the Associates. I wish in addition to thank Helen Lewis. Assistant Curator, and other members of
the Otis staff and those at the Whitney who supported our efforts.

Hal Glicksman
Gallery Director
February 1976

S",

Paper Cubes, 1964. Paper, each 3 x 3 x 3". Collection
of Betty Parsons, New York.

BELOW

10th Cloth Octagonal. 1968. Dyed cloth, approxi-
mately 54". Collection of Dr. Ruprecht Zwirner,
Braunlingen, Germany.

8th Rope Piece. 1974. Rope and nails, 1 XA" . Collection of
the artist.

Silver Abstraction 1964. Painted wood, approximately 3
x 96". Collection of Robert A. Rowan, Los Angeles.

6th Rome Piece. 1974. Graphite and paper, 6 x 4". Collection of the

artist.

3rd Cincinnati Piece.
of the artist.

1974. Painted wood, 23 x 3% x YW . Collection

Second installation view

OPPOSITE

>n/ Ropt Piece. 1974. Rope and nails, Vi x
3". Collection of the artist.

fS^^ks.* 9.

■It

tilt

(L'«

CI 1^

Infilled. 1967. Dyed and sewn canvas, approximately 38".
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Ronald K. Greenberg, St. Louis,
Missouri.

1 lth Paper Octagonal. 1970. Paper, approximately 54". Collection
of A. Baldessari, Bari, Italy.

<)<)

2nd Rome Piece. 1975. Graphite and paper, 5V4 x 3". Collection
of the artist.

Wth Painting for the Wall. 1970. Acrylic and graphite, 48 x 60'
Collection of the artist.

ART REVIEW

los 3ngtlrs Cimn 5

Men., Feb. 9, 1976-Part IV

Adrift in the Wide Open Spaces

BY WILLIAM WILSON

TlmtJ SUH Writer

People in Western culture com-
monly suffer a basic fear of floating
away. It's evidently triggered by
some • very primitive anxiety that
somebody is going to shut off one's
Gravity Switch, causing him to drift
off into the cosmos without so much
as a lunch bucket.

There is currently an exhibition on
view at the Otis Art Institute Gallery
that seems to be centered about feel-
ings that attach themselves to empty
space. The work is by New Yorker
Richard Tuttle and consists of small
objects hung on hugely empty walls.
It wouldn't be the same experience
without the void space, so what do
■we know about blankness?

This phobia has been around as
long as human memory. It is not al-
ways a phobia. Sometimes it is a phi-
lia, if that is the word, for an attrac-
tive fascination. Ambivalence about
floating off in the cosmos is probably
at the bottom of the Icarus myth.

A definite phobe often suffers un-
easiness faced by any sort of empti-
ness. The condition is called Horror
Vaccui and has affected whole cul-
tures. The barbarians had it, causing
them to encrust every inch of their
artifacts in inlay and complex design.
The Victorians had it, causing them
to stuff their homes down to the last
antimacassar and corner shelf.

Psychologists call the condition
"fear of sensory deprivation" and spe-
culate that people who have it were
those infants who were left kicking
helplessly like upended beetles. Kids
who always got cuddled for crying
are supposedly the adults who enjoy
the sensation of floating.

Obviously the way anybody feels
about empty space conditions his re-
sponse to works of art. Western peo-
ple tend to be phobes so art that uses
empty space in a certain way makes
them uneasy. The sculpture of Alber-
to Giacometti tended to relationships
that made his figures look as if infini-
ty were nibbling them away. Closer
to home the sculpture of Robert Gra-
ham suggests beautiful people isolat-
ed in the endless spaces of self-ab-

sorption. Bruce Nauman's use of void
space tends to be reflexive, causing
viewers to feel their response lies
more in themselves than in the object
The Tuttle exhibition is the second
half of a similar installation just pre-
ceding. Works in two main galleries
consist of one large wall made to
seem even larger being occupied by a
single small object. "Fourth Cincinna-
ti Piece," for example, is just a foot-
long piece of lumber, cut obliquely
and painted white. "Third Rope
Piece" is just a 2-inch length of hemp
mounted horizontally.

The second large gallery contains
works more conventionally similar to
a genre of contemporary painting.
These are geometric shapes of can-
vas, paper or paint bearing oblique"
cuts that suggest three-dimensional
illusions.

Conventionally installed, any of
these works would appear familiar as
some other sort of art — either forma-
list painting or dadaist gestures, so
the use of the single-wall installation
is crucial to our feelings about them.
When I saw Tuttle in a Wilder Gal-

lery solo a few years back, the works
came across as simply an interesting
variation on Ron Davis. Either the
Wilder installation didn't convey the
artist's intent or his intent has
changed.

A couple of viewers at Otis just
snorted disdainfully and walked out
Either they saw just another van-
guard put-on or tht> were aware
that the small-object-in-a-big-void in-
stallation is a psycho-formal artistic
device known to every second-year
graphic design student. At first your
reporter felt somewhat huffy, too.

However, all art is in the end based
on some variation on a known princi-
ple. 1 at' ic man'iges to u;e it to con-
vey an impression of philosophical
speculation. His small, almost child-
ishly simple paintings, drawings and
objects suggest overtones of mankind
trying to fathom the universe as a
touching, helpless gesture, like strik-
ing a match in infinity.

The exhibition was organized by
Marcia Tucker of New York's Whit-
ney Museum. It remains at Otis to
Feb. 29.

Richard Tuttle considering the second installation at Otiv

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